Pumpkin Breads, 2 kinds

This is my inaugural post as The Tart. I've been cooking since I was a child (and I'll post proof at a later time), and after graduating college and moving out on my own, I've discovered a fierce enjoyment of cooking. It started with just baking cookies occasionally and has grown into trying out all sorts of new recipes to feed the boyfriend and myself. The best nights are when we get to cook together. Generally, if it's just me on my own, I'll bake. Hence, you'll find a lot of baking on this blog in the future. I love to cook and bake mostly for other people because I find comfort and joy in bringing a little bit of... pleasure into their lives. This is why I generally don't cook anything worthwhile on the nights I'm home alone, which unfortunately is more often than I'd like due to the boyfriend's crappy work schedule. But we make do, and I bake to pass the time and to procrastinate on my studies. This blog will be updated somewhat infrequently, but it will be updated.

And with that little introduction, let me get to my latest baking adventure! Being November, pumpkin is in order! Therefore, I decided to try my hand at pumpkin bread. Instead of looking up a recipe, I modified my mom's zucchini bread recipe to become a pumpkin bread recipe.

I originally used 1 can of pumpkin for two loaves of bread, but I think it ended up a little dry. Next time I would use 1 1/2 cans of pumpkin puree (which is what I've written in the recipe).






1.5 can of pumpkin puree
1 2/3 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
3 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts (my bread had chopped pecans)
1/2 cup raisins, optional

Heat oven to 350°. Grease bottoms only of two loaf pans, 8 12 x 4 ½ x 2 ½, or 9 x 5 x 3 inches. Mix pumpkin, sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into pans. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves; remove from pans. Cool completely before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.

As a variation, which I used for the second loaf, whisk together 8 oz cream cheese, 1 egg and 1/4 cup of sugar. Pour half of the batter for one loaf into a bread pan, layer cream cheese mixture on top and finish with the rest of the pumpkin batter. My cream cheese filling ended up a bit thin, so I tried to swirl the cream cheese and top bread layer together. We haven't cut into this loaf yet, but I think it will be moister than the plain loaf. It certainly took about 5 minutes extra to cook until the knife came out clean.

The best way to store this bread is to wrap it in foil. Wrap it tightly enough and you can freeze the second loaf. The best way to enjoy this bread is warm with a bit of butter :)

Variations on this bread:

-- Replace the pumpkin with 3 cups grated zucchini (about 3 medium, make sure to drain the zucchini slightly or squeeze out a bit of the excess water before using otherwise the bread will end up mushy. But careful not to remove too much water, lest you end up with dry bread!). Also leave out the nutmeg and allspice for this.
-- Use your favorite kind of nut! I used pecans in my pumpkin bread, but you could just as easily use walnuts or almonds if you prefer.
-- Instead of raisins, use dried cranberries, cherries, blueberries, etc.
-- You could also possibly use bananas in place of the pumpkin/zucchini, but I have a better banana bread recipe (again, from my mom) that would be much tastier. It includes buttermilk. But that's a story for another day!

Happy cooking!