Married to the Empire

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

My Baking Philosophy

I'm not very fond of baking. I love to cook, but baking isn't my favorite thing to do in the kitchen. So, if I'm going to bake, I prefer to bake big. It's part of why I love my wheat bread recipe; it makes 4 loaves at once! And when I bake pumpkin bread, I quadruple the recipe. Three loaves for the freezer, 1 loaf for right now.




Pumpkin Bread

1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin (approx. ½ of a 15-oz. can)
1/2 cup vegetable oil (or 1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup applesauce)
1/2 cup water
2 eggs
1 cup wheat flour
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. each ground cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg
1/4 tsp. baking powder

In a mixing bowl, combine first 5 ingredients. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, spices, and baking powder; gradually add to pumpkin mixture. Fold in pecans. Pour into a greased 9”x 5” loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 70-80 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; remove from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: 1 loaf

If you choose to double or even quadruple this recipe, just make sure you have a big bowl!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your recipe is very similar to mine, though mine is a "double" of yours; it uses an entire can of pumpkin and makes two loaves. I have made it healthier by substituting unsweetened applesauce for all of the cooking oil, and cutting the amount of sugar in half. It is still *very* tasty and much lighter. I put nuts in mine, too, but I seem to recall you detest pecans! How about walnuts?

Anne Marie@Married to the Empire said...

Becky, I hate nuts of any type. The taste quite literally makes me gag. I don't know why I react to them like that, but I do.

Peanuts are the only "nuts" I can eat, and I figure that must be because they're actually legumes. However, I can't eat them cooked in things, nor can I do crunchy peanut butter. In those cases, it's a matter of texture. A PBJ shouldn't have chunks! *shudder*

I may do what you did and try cutting down on the sugar next time. It has A LOT of sugar!

Anonymous said...

LOL! I *love* nuts of all kinds. I can't think of any variety I don't adore. The only way I don't care for them is in hot main dishes (e.g., Asian dishes with almonds). I can identify with the texture issue, though. That's one reason I'm not crazy about pears; the gritty texture isn't appealing to me. Regarding the sugar, when you add that much applesauce (even unsweetened), much less sugar is needed. I'm tempted to try 1/3 the sugar and see how it turns out.