A Tasty Pumpkin Bread Recipe
Autum has arrived! When the chill comes and pumpkins start showing up at the store, it starts to get exciting because heartier eating is right around the corner. It also means that we start cooking and baking with all those “warmer” tasting spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and clove! All of these spices speak fall to me. When added to pumpkins, it is like a massive autumnal explosion! There is a lot you can do with some pumpkin and these spices. One of my favorite being baking up a nice loaf of pumpkin bread – but this is not your normal pumpkin bread as I prefer mine less sweet and more, well, bread-like! Having it warm slathered with butter or cream cheese is a real treat!
If I can, I go the extra mile when making my pumpkin bread recipe by using real pumpkin, but if I can’t, that can of pumpkin is just fine by me. Ask your green grocer about baking or sugar pumpkins. They are smaller, drier, and more dense than the carving pumpkins we make into jack O’lanterns. In many pumpkin bread recipes, there is a lot of vegetable oil. This adds a lot of “moisture”, but I prefer not to add the extra fat. You can still get a nice moist bread without it by using 2 eggs and a more reasonable amount of butter. Most recipes also call for white sugar, but brown sugar is very nice because of the molasses notes. It may result in slightly less sweet bread, but I am ok with that. The spices can be added as you desire. If you want more cinnamon, then just add it right in. If you want a bit more heat, then extra clove is in order. The recipe below has a spice level that gives good flavor, but that can be tweaked to your liking. Here is my pumpkin bread recipe …
- ½ of a baking pumpkin (not the carving pumpkins) or 1- 12 oz can of canned pumpkin
- 2 cups of flour
- 3 tsp of baking powder
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 tsp of cinnamon
- 1 tsp of nutmeg
- 1 tsp of allspice
- 1 tsp of ginger
- 1/2 tsp of clove
- 1/2 cup of butter, softened
- 1 cup of light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp of vanilla
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- Butter and flour a 9"x5" bread pan.
- If using a fresh pumpkin, cut it in half, remove the seeds from the half of pumpkin. Carefully remove the skin with a knife and cut the pumpkin into half inch cubes.
- In a medium pot, bring enough water to cover the pumpkin to boil. Cook the pumpkin in the boiling water until very tender, about 10 minutes. Drain the pumpkin. Cool completely.
- In a small bowl, mix the flour, spices, baking powder and salt.
- In a large bowl using a hand mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add the cooked pumpkin and cream together.
- Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.
- Slowly mix in the flour mixture into the wet ingredients starting on low speed. Mix until they are just fully incorported into the wet ingredients.
- Pour the batter into the bread pan.
- Bake about one hour or until a knife inserted into into the bread's center comes out clean.
- Remove the bread from the oven and let cool 15 minutes in the pan. Remove it from the pan and let cool completely on cooling rack.
- The half pumpkin should yield 8-10 oz of uncooked pumpkin.
- Pumpkin spice can be substituted for the spices used here. A spicier bread can be made by adding more spice, especially clove.
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For clarificattion purposes. The type of flour you use in this recipe is it all_purpose? And also,if using pumpkin spice, how much? This recipe sounds delicious!!!