Pumpkin bread, you ask? But it’s spring! Why would I be interested in pumpkin bread?
I know it’s not very seasonal, but there are still plenty of cans of pumpkin in my local supermarket, and pumpkin bread is a staple in this household. My son doesn’t like bananas, so where some people might rely on banana bread, around here the good orange stuff gets all the press. This is a pretty basic recipe that I switched up a bit, and I have several optional substitutions to make it even more full of the good stuff that we like to sneak into the kids when they think they’re eating dessert.
Basic recipe:
1.5 cups AP flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice (or mace)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree (that’s half a 14oz can)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional, but highly recommended)
Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices in a large bowl. A balloon whisk is nice for this.
Beat the eggs in a medium bowl. Add the sugar, pumpkin, oil, and water, beating well after each addition. Your balloon whisk again or just a fork will work well for this.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and use a fork or wooden spoon to mix just well enough to blend in the flour. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Bake in a lined 9×5 loaf tin at 350 F for one hour or until a skewer comes out clean. (I have two silicone baking sheets that I use to line my loaf tins, because I’m quite lazy. You can see them in the bottom photo. They work magnificently well.)
Healthy substitutions:
- Switch up to half the AP flour for wholewheat flour.
- Switch part or all the oil for the same amount of applesauce.
- For each egg, mix 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal with 3 tablespoons water in a small bowl and leave for a few minutes to thicken. Add this to the wet ingredients. You can sub out any number of the eggs in this way.
I usually make two loaves at a time, simply to use up the whole tin of pumpkin in one go. Then I freeze one loaf ready-wrapped in individual slices for school lunch “dessert” and we eat the other more quickly than you could believe. I get into trouble if I forget the chocolate chips, but if your family is more open-minded than mine you could try nuts or seeds or any number of good things.
Get inventive and let me know how it turns out!
Christine tries to fill her days with blogging at Awfully Chipper and baking delicious things to go with a nice cup of tea, but every now and then she has to stop to put on a load of laundry or pick some ungrateful child up from school. Them’s the breaks, she supposes.
