Category Archives: cake

Pumpkin Bread

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Once you’ve made your Thanksgiving Fudge, you might have some pumpkin left. What to do with it?IMG_0549 copy

We rarely throw away half a can of pumpkin. Not only is it good for humans, pumpkin is a nutritious treat for dogs and cats, plus it’s low in calories. Most of our crew loves it. We mix it with their food or feed it to them directly. Most of them will eat it right from a spoon. In fact, our oldest cat, Flynn, will fight you for it.

This year, instead of sharing the pumpkin with the animals, I decided to use the rest of it to make a quick bread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_bread).

My grandmother made quick breads all the time, mostly banana bread. I used her recipe for a while, but several years ago I modified it to use honey instead of sugar. And this time, I substituted the leftover pumpkin for bananas.

The result was not as sweet, but the bread is so good fresh out of the oven, slathered with butter and a couple dollops of honey. (Apparently, you’re supposed to wait for bread to cool down before you cut it, but who can ever wait that long? I can’t! In fact, I wanted to get a picture of the whole loaf, but we couldn’t wait to dig into it. I had to settle for a picture of half a piece of bread.)

You can use any brand of honey, but I’m a huge fan of local honeys. The Austin area is fortunate to have several local producers. For this batch of bread, I used honey from Austin’s Good Flow Honey Co. (Disclaimer: My sister-in-law and her husband work for Good Flow.)

Ingredients
1/2 cup honey
1 cup cooked pumpkin (or bananas or whatever mashed fruit or vegetable you want to use)
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Grease (not oil) a 9×5 or 8×4-inch loaf pan.
  3. In a large bowl, blend the first six ingredients (honey, pumpkin, butter, milk, vanilla, and eggs).
  4. Beat 1 minute at medium speed.
  5. Add the remaining ingredients and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened.
  6. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
  7. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
  8. Cool 5 minutes and remove from pan.
  9. Cool completely.