Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

Ok, can I just tell you guys, I love when you leave me comments? I love ALL comments, but I especially love the ones where you ask a question and you sign them "Anonymous". So then I get to write, "Dear Anonymous".  It makes me feel like a spy, or Ann Landers or something.  I'm a fan.

Anyways, since I've made this bread every year of my existence (not really), I probably need to share the recipe with you.  It's so moist and perfectly spiced.  I can't live through the Fall without baking some of this up.  I like to use a heavy hand on some of the spices (just be careful with the cloves), and if you're feeling crazy you can add some mini chocolate chips. 

Update 8/24/12:  I tried this recipe substituting half the pumpkin for shredded zucchini (excess from the garden!) and it turned out great! I put my first 4 ingredients in the blender, including the shredded zucchini, to avoid stringiness that you sometimes get from using zucchini.  I also made them into muffins instead of bread.  Instructions below. 

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

Recipe slightly adapted from Allrecipes

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil (I like using 1/2 c oil, 1/2 c applesauce. You can also sub melted, cooled, butter for the oil.)
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans. I like to line the bottoms with a small piece of parchment so the bottom doesn’t rip when removing bread from the pans. 

Recently this bread has baked up dark for me so in the future I will try baking at 325°. 

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugars until well blended. 

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. (Feel free to use a generous hand with the spices, particularly the cinnamon and nutmeg.)

Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.

 

Pour into the prepared pans.

Bake about 65 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Delight in pumpkiny goodness. 

*For muffins, put batter into 24-28 cupcake liners.  Fill about 2/3 full or they will overflow as they bake!!  Bake about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.