My Favorite Pumpkin Bread

When my baby turned one, I made her pumpkin cupcakes.  But I also doubled the recipe so I could try to make half of the recipe as pumpkin bread.  It was some of the most delicious pumpkin bread I have ever made!  The recipe comes from joyofbaking.com.

I think one of the reasons why I liked my original pumpkin bread so much is because I had enough batter to fill the pan half way.  The result was a pumpkin loaf as big as one you'd buy in the store (but better-tasting).

When I made the pumpkin bread I made for the blog, I doubled the recipe again and made two loaves.  They still taste amazing, but they did not rise as high as the loaf I made back in September.  I think if I tweaked the recipe to 1.5x the original and made one loaf, I'd get the type of bread I come to expect.  I look forward to figuring that out and trying it!

It's also worth noting that this pumpkin bread is made like a cake, which makes it especially yummy.  Instead of mixing vegetable oil or melted butter into the dry ingredients, you cream the butter and the sugar.  This makes the texture more like a cake than a quick bread or muffin.  I love the mix of spices in this recipe, which includes lots of cinnamon and some cloves and ginger.

Anyway, here is the recipe and pictures of my favorite homemade pumpkin bread!

Ingredients!

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 cups granulated white sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups solid packed, canned pumpkin puree

These ingredients are doubled from the original recipe.

  

Grease two loaf pans.

  

 Sift together flour, baking soda, spices and salt.  I love sifting!

Cream together your butter (room temperature) and sugar.

Add your eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Then beat in the vanilla extract.

Add in half your flour mixture.

Then mix in all your pumpkin puree.

Then mix in the other half of your flour.  Do not overmix.  At this point, I took it off my mixer and gently incorporated the rest of the flour by mixing by hand with a mixing spoon.  Divide into your loaf pans and bake for about an hour at 350.  Allow to cool on a wire rack for about 10-15 minutes, then turn it out onto the racks.

Pumpkin bread is always better the next day.  I personally love it nice and cold.  When you put it in the fridge over night - wrapped in plastic wrap and tin foil - it gets a lovely sticky top.  Yum!  Since this pumpkin bread was prepared the way you prepare cake, it's just like cake.  If you want to be REALLY bad, top with cream cheese frosting.

Be on the lookout for my Grammy's EASY pumpkin bread recipe.  Great for lazy bakers (such as myself) and busy parents. :)  (UPDATE: Now available here).

Source:
Joy of Baking Pumpkin Cupcakes: http://www.joyofbaking.com/cupcakes/PumpkinCupcakes.html

UPDATE 10/17/11: I froze the loaf you see above on the right and decided to take it camping.  I let my niece try it, then she let her cousins try it.  Next thing I knew, it was gone in about 30 seconds! They really loved it.  It made me feel like super-aunt.


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