'Tis The Season For Pumpkin Bread

When the weather turns cold & Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I like to bake a treat very near and dear to my heart--pumpkin chocolate-chip bread. I discovered the recipe by chance in a newspaper several years ago, and it's become my "go-to" gift recipe for the fall. I haven't had any complaints from the friends/co-workers who receive these little loaves. This is a good "gifting" recipe, because otherwise, I would get very fat eating this bread on my own! Plus, it makes your house smell very delicious.

For those of you who would like to sample the pumpkin-y goodness in your own home (or, if I've gifted you this loaf before and want to duplicate it at another date), here's how it's done! (SPOILER ALERT: this is a surprisingly easy recipe to make)

Here are most of the ingredients you need; and...

...here are the cooking tools that I use; similar items should work for you just as well!

First of all, you combine all the dry ingredients:

3 cups flour
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 - 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Then you stir them all up like so...

Now, in a separate bowl, stir together the "wet" ingredients:

4 eggs
1 cup oil
2/3 cup water

Next, pour the wet ingredients into the dry & mix them all up:

This is a pretty heavy bread (it's almost cake-like), so as the ingredients combine, it will get a little hard to stir. Be sure to mix thoroughly and get all the loose flour off the bottom of the bowl!
 At this point, you will add the pumpkin (I use one 15-ounce can of pumpkin), then keep on stirring until it's well-blended & the batter gets a nice orange tinge:

Then it's time to stir in the yummiest part; the chocolate chips! I add either
1 12-ounce package of chips; or,
2 heaping cups of chips, whatever's available.

Stir it all up good! Mmmmm...

Okay, now it's time to divide the batter into loaf pans. Make sure your loaf pans are greased and floured:

As you can see, this is a pretty big recipe; the batter will fill two standard-sized (9" x 5" x 3") loaf pans, or four mini-loaf pans, which I'm using here (UPDATE: due to too many overflowed loaf pans in the past, I've started using five pans, not four. In addition, I use one additional mini-pan when filling the two standard-sized pans. This has greatly reduced the spilling accidents in my oven, and the loaves turn out more evenly shaped. Plus, more loaves to give out/eat. Everyone wins!)

Then you stick the loaves into a preheated, 325-degree oven:

And bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes, or until you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean. Voila!

Full disclosure time: sometimes these loaves are almost too soft & sticky; I have had a hard time in the past getting them out of the pan cleanly, as shown below:

However, the bread is usually so tasty that nobody has ever complained about the ugliness of the bottom :)

One good serving suggestion: serve each slice of this bread with a dollop of whipped cream and a fork. Yes, it's that rich. It can be eaten plain, of course, but this way you can ingest even more calories at a time!!

Here's another plus: they freeze really well, so it's easy to make them well in advance. Then, just wrap 'em up in Saran Wrap and aluminum foil and stick 'em in the deep freeze! As you can see, I have been busy baking lately...but most of these are going to friends!

So, that's pretty much it. And for all you who are receiving one of these loaves soon...now you know my secret! I hope you put this power to good use. And for those of you who live far away...GET BAKING! You won't be sorry.