Pumpkin Bread

Fall is the season for all things pumpkin! Now I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin drinks, but pumpkin food COUNT ME IN! So this week I decided to try to make my own pumpkin creation. I've made banana bread countless times, so obviously the next step for the fall season is pumpkin bread! So I looked up a pumpkin recipe and decided that I wanted to tweak it a little. You can find the original one I used here.

So for this recipe you'll need: Flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, pumpkin puree, coconut oil, eggs, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and water

So first you're going to preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Then you mix together one and a half cups of flour, one half a teaspoon of salt, a cup of sugar, and a teaspoon of baking soda. And then just set it to the side

So you might be wondering what the distorted looking orange stuff in the ziplock bag is in the other picture. That is my homemade pumpkin puree. I decided a while ago that I liked the homemade version better than the stuff from the can. One pumpkin gets me about eight cups of pumpkin puree, which I measure out into ziplock bags (one cup per bag) and then into the freezer they go until I'm ready to make something pumpkin! Here's what it looks like after it's defrosted:

So the original recipe that I found had called for olive oil. Now don't get me wrong, I love olive oil, but I couldn't bring myself to put it into a baked good because it has such a strong flavor. Now I had heard that using coconut oil in baking makes things come out really moist, and I happened to have coconut oil on hand because I use it to make sugar scrubs so I thought I'd give it a try.

So the recipe had called for half a cup of olive oil, so I figured I'd just use half a cup of coconut oil. So I keep my coconut oil in the fridge so it stays solid and doesn't spill all over on accident (I've had that happen). So I just cut some out of the jar and put it in the measuring cup thinking that if it was over or under half a cup after I put it in the microwave to liquify I could add more or take some out. As it turns out I had cut out EXACTLY half a cup, I took that as a sign to proceed and try it with coconut oil

See! Right at half a cup!

So what you want to do now is mix the one cup of pumpkin puree, a half cup of coconut oil, two eggs, a fourth of a cup of water, and then half a teaspoon each of allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg in the mixer

I would also like to stop for a moment and revel in how cute my spice holders that my mom passed down to me are!

Seriously SO CUTE!

So after you have all of the wet ingredients mixed up, its time to add in the flour mixture

Make sure that you mix it really well to get everything incorporated. It should look something like this:

So the original recipe called for a 9x5 loaf pan, I only had 8x4 loaf pans, so i used two of them. Make sure you grease the pans down so that the bread will pop right out.

They need to cook for about 50 minutes, until a knife comes out clean. And then you have delicious pumpkin bread to share!

I think I'm going to call this recipe a success judging by the fact that in only a matter of hours there is very little left of the first loaf from me and my roommates going at it.

Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from Simply Recipes

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350

Combine flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda in a bowl

Mix together pumpkin, coconut oil, eggs, water, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a mixer

Add in flour mixture

Pour into two greased 8x4 loaf pans. Bake about 50 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean. Take loaves out of pans and serve.

Makes 2 loaves. Cover after making.