The subtitle for this one is “Not Too Sweet.” It’s October and when I have fresh roasted pumpkin in the house, I want pumpkin bread. For years, I’d just scour the web and try something out. The recipes that have the most positive feedback are the ones I usually pick. This year I realized as I went searching that the recipes were loaded with sugar and I remembered that though I loved the bread I made last year, I knew I was basically eating candy. So, this year, I decided to whip up my own recipe. I even added ground flax seed. You know, for health.
I find this “Not Too Sweet” version so much more enjoyable. I think the pumpkin flavor is so aloud to come through at a higher pitch. The pumpkin is more than a flavoring here, it’s actually part of the culmination of flavor and texture. The texture is more bread like than cake like with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Pumpkin spice varies from recipe to recipe. I believe it does so based on whether or not there is actual pumpkin in the recipe. When you put together vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves together, your senses tell you it is a pumpkin spiced thing. While this mix of flavors is delicious, I don’t always use it. This bread doesn’t use ginger (thought you could!) and only puts in a hint of clove. I like pumpkin things to taste like pumpkin. I hope enjoy this bread, not cake- pumpkin deliciousness.
I also used fresh (really frozen from last year’s pie pumpkin roasting) pumpkin. I don’t drain it and don’t puree it for most applications. You can can see the strings of pumpkin fiber and that just makes me happy.
- 2 cups fresh pureed pumpkin
- 3 eggs
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- scant ½ cup apple sauce
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tbsp. apple cider syrup (optional)
- ½ cup dark brown sugar
- 1 cup white sugar
- 3 cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup ground flax seed
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp. ground cloves
- ½ chopped pecans (optional)
- Preheat oven to 350. Grease you bread pan. I like to use the easy flour and oil from a spray can. It's not cheating, it's modern day awesomeness.
- Mix all the wet ingredients and sugars, 1st 7 ingredients, in a bowl large enough to fit everything.
- Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl; flour, flax, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet in a couple of batches mixing after each addition. I usually spread it out to 3. Don't over mix, just blend to combine.
- Fold in pecans.
- Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean. This is a dense load so don't stress if you need to add 15-30 minutes. Just text the bread if it begins to get too dark on top.
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