Recipe: Pumpkin Bread
Whenever we have a family gathering, this pumpkin bread is one of the first things to disappear.
Its super-moist and packed with flavor and it can be made into a simple pumpkin loaf; or enhanced with chocolate chips and/or nuts. Or raisins. Or cinnamon chips. Or…you can get creative yourself!
Recipe: Pumpkin Bread
Whenever we have a family gathering, this pumpkin bread is one of the first things to disappear.
Its super-moist and packed with flavor and it can be made into a simple pumpkin loaf; or enhanced with chocolate chips and/or nuts. Or raisins. Or cinnamon chips. Or...you can get creative yourself!
Ingredients
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2 2/3 cups granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 2 cups or one 15-ounce can pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 2/3 cup water
- 3 1/3 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans optional
- 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips optional
- coarse white sugar for sprinkling on top optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pans (if you're making the plain version of the bread); two 9" x 5" loaf pans (if you're adding chocolate chips and nuts); or one of each, if you're making one plain loaf, and one loaf with chips and nuts.
- In a large bowl, beat together the oil, sugar, eggs, pumpkin, and water.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and vanilla, stirring to combine.
- Mix in the chips and nuts, if you're using them. To make one loaf with chips/nuts, one loaf without, divide the batter in half. Leave one half plain, and add 3/4 cup chips and 1/2 cup nuts to the other half.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared pans. Sprinkle the tops of the loaves with coarse sparkling sugar, if desired.
- Bake the bread for 60 to 80 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean; and that same tester inserted about 1/2" into the top of the loaf doesn't encounter any totally unbaked batter.
- Remove the bread from the oven, and cool it on a rack. When it's completely cool, wrap it well in plastic wrap, and store it overnight before serving.
- Yield: 2 loaves.
