I realize pumpkin dishes are probably mostly for Thanksgiving, since pumpkin isn’t as much of a winter product. But I have discovered that baking with pumpkin is one of my favorite things to do – it always is used in simple recipes that end up tasting great!
My sister-in-law, Sonja, made this bread for Thanksgiving. It’s AMAZING. OK, again, it’s not bread. It’s hard to recognize any food as bread when it has more sugar and flour than other ingredients. But it’s really freaking delicious, and it’s super simple. I also have to preface this by saying that my great new kitchen appliances were a boon to have in this recipe. I think that’s part of what made it so very simple.
And yeah, OK, it has 2 cups of sugar in it but I DON’T CARE because I’m having minor knee surgery tomorrow and I want to have something tasty on-hand to nibble on throughout the weekend. So I made it.
Mixing eggs and sugar is always a great way to start a recipe.
Then I added flour, salt, baking soda, and a variety of spices (cinnamon, allspice, ginger, cloves, nutmeg). I love how they’re all brown, but so many distinct shades! Also, I have to say I’m partial to having all the different spices, instead of just having pumpkin pie spice on hand. I can alter the proportions of them (i.e. I loooove gloves and ginger, so I always add a bit more of those).
I looked at the recipe and groaned after realizing that I’d forgotten to chop up a bunch of fresh cranberries. But – enter my trusty new immersion blender with a chopper attachment! In addition to having the immersion blender attachment, I have a nifty little food processor attachment, and then also a whisk attachment (still trying to figure out how that is different than my hand-mixer whisk attachment, and I don’t think it is). I just threw a whole ton of cranberries in (avoid phallic jokes, please)…
Pulsed in short bursts for about ten seconds…
And voila! Chopped cranberries in no time flat. Brilliant. And pretty!
Fold those cranberries in and pop those “breads” in the oven. Then, every time you walk out and in of your house, it will smell amazing. Meanwhile, you can make some chicken salad for the weekend so your fiance doesn’t have to worry about fixing food, and make dinner before your in-home dog trainer gets to the house.
Mmmm breakfast and snacks for the next few days.
Tags: Baking, Punkin, Sweet tooth
December 4, 2009 at 9:56 pm |
Yum. Pumpkin can be an all winter fruit. About 30 minutes with your leftover jack-o-lantern and you’ve got 6 pumpkin breads and 6 pumpkin soups (maybe more, depending on your . We had a pumpkin bread (without cranberries) for Thanksgiving. It was good, but I like your addition of ginger. I wonder if fresh grated ginger (or candied ginger…mmm) in with the cranberries wouldn’t also be good. I got a recipe for pumpkin blueberry muffins which looks really good if you’re interested.
December 4, 2009 at 11:22 pm |
Yeah I really love ginger! I definitely used ground ginger in this recipe – I agree, I think minced fresh ginger would have been too pungent along with the tartness of the cranberries. Although the 2 cups of pumpkin and all that sugar definitely cut the cranberries anyway
I might have a piece right now since I’ve been sleeping ALL DAY.
December 4, 2009 at 11:27 pm |
also i really wanted to use brown sugar and flour but was out of both. garrr.