Special Edition: Tis the Season for Pumpkin Bread

Slices of my yummy Pumpkin Bread

The second loaf I made was Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Tis the season for Pumpkin! The leaves are changing colors, the air is crisp, and Halloween is right around the corner.  I love Fall! I bought my Pumpkins for my front porch from Whole Foods, and I have a big yellow Mum from Home Depot siting next to them.

I found this recipe for Pumpkin Bread at: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Downeast-Maine-Pumpkin-Bread/Detail.aspx.

I changed things up a little.

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree

4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup water

3 cups white sugar

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

* Note, I didn't have the ground cloves or ground ginger, so I added a teaspoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice along with the cinnamon and nutmeg. I was a little heavy handed with the spices, but you could use less if you would like a more mild bread.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans. * Note: I used 2 bigger loaf pans (I think they were 9x5).
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Some tips:

- Before I poured the batter into the pans, I greased them heavily with butter and then lightly floured them.  As a result, my loaves came out of the pans so easily.
- Because I used two pans instead of three, I kept my loaf in the oven for about an hour and then turned off the oven and kept it in about 15 minutes with the door closed because the top was starting to burn, but the inside wasn't done.
- Make sure you leave enough room between the racks so your loaves have plenty of room to rise - they rise quite a bit.
- After I poured the batter into the pans, I stirred some mini chocolate chips into one of the loaves (about a cup).

I brought the pumpkin bread to my tennis match and everyone really liked it.  I wrapped up the other loaf and put it in the freezer for another day! Yum!