Pumpkin..

bread.

Can I just say that this is one of the absolute best quick bread recipes I've ever made?  It makes two loaves and I guarantee they won't last longer than a couple of days.

The recipe I use is this Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread.

First things first...

Yes, I made my own pumpkin puree.

Yes, I buy organic sugar pie pumpkins from Whole Foods and cook them.

Yes, I measure out 15 ounces of pumpkin on my kitchen scale and freeze them in Tupperware.

Yes, I know most of you think I'm crazy :)

If you want to join me in the land of crazy, here is a great tutorial on how to cook pumpkin for puree, if not just buy a can of pumpkin.

15 oz pumpkin puree

So away we go, prepare your pans and make sure your pumpkin is defrosted or just open your can.

I greased and floured 2 5*9 inch pans.  The recipe specs 3 7*3 inch pans, but I don't own any that size.

I still grease the pans the old fashioned way by rubbing shortening all over them, then throwing in some flour and knocking it around.  If you use that new fangled cooking spray/flour combo thing, let me know how it works out.

Prepared pans

Next up is the wet ingredients, just dump them in and mix it up.

Wet ingredients ready to be mixed

Ready for the dry ingredients

Next I measure out the dry ingredients. There are a couple of changes to the seasoning mix I've made to the bread to suit our taste.  I add a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon and reduce to cloves to 1/8 tsp.

dry ingredients

If you wanted to you could easily substitute whole wheat flour for the all purpose flour, it would add more fiber but the texture of the bread would change.  Probably not enough for your kids to notice though, husbands - yes.  I usually do half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour.

ready for the pans

Once the dry ingredients are incorporated pour into pans and bake away.  My loaves take about 60 minutes, be sure to check the center with a tooth pick to make sure they are done.

wow, my workspace doesn't look too messy today

Mmmm, here is the bread, looking perfectly delicious.  Let the bread cool in the pans for about 10 minutes.  Then run a knife around the edge, tip them over and pop the bread out.  Let it cool off on a rack for at least another hour.  It can be really hard to wait for the bread to cool, but if you try and cut it too soon it just falls apart.

Ready to come out of the pans

I know this from personal experience :)

Yum!

Enjoy!

I'm back..

.. with Banana Bread.

Singing *It's been a while..*  You guys know that 1990s song, right?  Who was the band, wait let me google it - ah hah! Staind!  That line of the song has been running through my head as I decided to sit and actually update my blog.

Lot's has happened since I last posted.. drama, illness, and generally being busy.  But the past is the past and I hate to dwell so let's move onto Banana Bread.  I mean how bad can the world be if there is Banana Bread in it.

And to be honest, this isn't just any Banana Bread.  It is the absolute, 100% best ever Banana Banana Bread.  I've been using this recipe since one of my Home Economics students found it way, way back in the 90's.  Hmm, teaching 90's, Staind song 90's..  I'm sensing a theme here, but I digress.

Any hoo, this banana bread is fabulous, the only downside is that you need a lot of bananas to make it.  I used 4 very large bananas today and just barely had enough.  This isn't the type of recipe you can make because you have one left over banana that nobody would eat.  This recipe takes planning ahead.  Next time you hit the grocery store buy 5 extra bananas and plan on making this a week later, your family will love you for it.

 I start off mixing the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  It doesn't have to be a giant bowl, but remember you will be stirring in the wet ingredients and all those bananas and you need room to work :)

 Cream together the butter and brown sugar.  I was a bit short on brown sugar today so I substituted granulated sugar to make up the difference.  Also I neglected to get the butter out of the refrigerator to soften overnight, so I cut mine into pieces and nuked it for 20 seconds.  This really isn't ideal and you run the risk of melting your butter, which changes the texture of your bread.

 Mush up the banana, but not too much.  I learned from watching a Barefoot Contessa episode a few years back that it is much easier to mash the bananas on a cutting board versus a bowl.  I don't know why I used to use a bowl, probably because my Mom did.  Anyway, here is what my banana looks like.

 Mix the banana into the butter, sugar, egg mixture.  The more you mix this, the smaller your pieces of banana will be.  Personally I don't like giant pieces of banana in my bread, but if you do minimize the mixing.

I mixed the banana mixture into my large bowl with the flour mix in it.  Stir this gently and as little as possible, remember over mixing makes your baked goods come out tough.  The bread baked in the oven for 60 minutes and was looking good when it came out.  I'm going to let mine cool off and be ready to go when the kids come home from school looking for something to eat.

Let me know if you try the recipe- enjoy!

What to do with one very ripe banana?

Make some muffins!  Of course I looked and looked and couldn't find a recipe that used only 1 banana, so I had to improvise.  I pulled out my trusty Betty Crocker from the 1970's and found a generic muffin recipe called Sweet Muffins.  I checked their online recipe index and they do not have this recipe listed so I've included it here.

Perfect get home from school snack

Sweet Muffins
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Prepare 12 medium muffin cups by either greasing or lining with a liner.  Beat egg; stir in milk and oil.  Mix in remaining ingredients just until flour is moistened.  Batter should be lumpy.  Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake for 20-25 minutes.

To this basic recipe I added 1 diced very ripe banana to the batter.

I made a quick struesel for the top by mushing up 1 Tablespoons butter, 2 Tablespoons brown sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.  I sprinkled the struesel on top and popped them in the oven.  When the muffins came out I realized that the oven was pretty hot at 400 degrees.  When I make these again, I would reduce the temp to 375 degrees and bake for the same amount of time.

The muffins were a hit with all 3 kids, enjoy!