Pumpkin Bread, Kristi Style

The Finished Product

 

 

Sure you can find a recipe and follow it to the letter, but how boring!  Where is the adventure in that?

Here is how you make pumpkin bread the sporting way:

For starters, I recommend making this in someone else's kitchen if you have the opportunity.  This makes it more like one of those reality cooking competitions where you don't know what you've got to work with until the last minute.

If you can help it, don't look around too much in the cupboards beforehand.  There is probably flour or a flour like substance around.  In my case, I got by with pancake mix and some leftover blueberry muffin mix.

Now, quickly glance through a few online recipes to get the general gist of what should go into the batter.  One thing I already knew I would need for pumpkin bread: pumpkin.

I knew I would also need eggs so I bought those at the store along with the pumpkin.  I was pretty sure there was oil and sugar in the house, and I figured everything else I needed would either be available or improvised.  For me, that is the best part of cooking--seeing what the recipe evolves into based on what I discover in the kitchen.

Preheat the oven to whatever feels right.  In this case, 350 degrees seemed like a safe bet.  Find whatever cooking pans you are going to bake the bread in.  I found a small disposable loaf pan and a muffin tin.  Make sure to grease them before you put the batter in.

Start by dumping the flour or flour-esque ingredients into a mixing bowl.  Since I started with pancake and muffin mix, I didn't need to add leavening.  But if you're using plain flour, add around a teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda.

Now start adding the pumpkin, and see what else is around to throw in there.  I found applesauce and several pumpkin-friendly spices like ginger, clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon.  Don't bother measuring any of this.  Use your sense of smell to gauge how the batter is coming along.  When it smells yummy, taste it a bit to see what else is needed.  Of course you're going to need loads of sugar, and a bit of salt.  I also added chopped walnuts because I had some handy.  I thought about adding raisins, too, but somehow this felt wrong.  I then mixed in three eggs, because that was what was left in the carton that was already in the fridge before I bought more.  Then I added some oil and mixed it all up to make sure it wasn't too dry or too wet.  It was perfect, smelled amazing, and had a nice orange pumpkin-y color.

If you're eager to take a sneak peak at how your batter will bake up, you can try my little trick:  Put about a quarter cup of batter in a coffee cup and microwave it for about one minute.  This will give you a general idea of how the flavors will bake together and how the consistency will be when done.  Plus, you get to enjoy a great snack :) When I did this, I discovered the batter still needed a bit more sugar, which I dumped in liberally.  After the second coffee cup test, I could tell I had it right and was ready to bake. 

I don't usually time things, but again I use my sense of smell to determine when things are getting close to done.  When the kitchen started smelling like a bakery, I used the toothpick test to determine that the muffins were done.  I could see that the loaf, however, was still gooey in the middle so that was left to bake a bit longer.  I will probably check it again in about 15 minutes unless things start to smell too cooked and take it out before that.

The muffins are cooling now, and I'm finishing my coffee cup of pumpkin bread.  That, my friends, is how I usually whip something up in the kitchen--Kristi style :0)

Tomorrow I start my Paleo diet, so I'll be sharing some of my kitchen adventures with that, too.