pumpkin bread at its finest

And now to the most delicious pumpkin bread we've ever tasted. (We finished off our loaf today and both my daughter and I were a little sad at lunch when it was all gone. What's better with 'roni and cheese than warm slices of pumpkin bread?)

This recipe was inspired by Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread from allrecipes.com, but I made quite a few modifications so I'll spell out the recipe here in the blog this time.

2 generous cups fresh pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2/3 cup water
2 cups white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat 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
cinnamon/sugar mixture
melted butter/brown sugar/cinnamon mixture

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and coat with cinnamon/sugar mixture one loaf pan and put baking cups in regular muffin pans for 16-18 muffins.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, applesauce, water and both sugars until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the loaf pan and then pour remaining batter into the muffin pans.
3. Bake muffins for 30 minutes and the loaf for 1 hour 10 minutes. (Times are approximate, make sure you're checking on them from time to time.) They are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
4. Place loaf pan on a greased rimmed baking sheet immediately after it's done baking. Poke holes all over the top of the bread and pour a melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon mixture over the holes. (I didn't do any measuring for this mixture so just start with a couple tablespoons melted butter and add brown sugar and cinnamon until it's to a consistency you like. It needs to be runny enough to seep into the holes.) Let cool and dig in! Or you can eat it before it cools if you're just too excited like we were.
5. Let the muffins cool. I topped some of them with cream cheese frosting and orange sugar sprinkles for dessert for a dinner party this weekend. (I halved this recipe except for the powdered sugar. I still used 2 cups of that.)


Now, let me start by saying my husband doesn't like pumpkin OR cream cheese, until now. I didn't expect that he'd eat any of our pumpkin bread and definitely not the icing-topped muffins. I didn't even bother offering him any because I didn't want my feelings hurt when he wasn't interested in trying it. But he didn't even want to share with our daughter. She had to have her own muffin, and that wasn't even her request. I loved it too. Best pumpkin bread I've ever had. We've found a new fall staple for our home. Can't wait to go back to the pumpkin patch next week so we can find our next right pumpkin.