Really Good Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

Topping - 
5 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt

Bread - 
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 (15 ounce) can unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 ounces cream cheese, cut into 12 pieces
1/4 cup buttermilk
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped fine (optional)

Instructions:
For the topping - 
1.  Using fingers, mix all ingredients together in bowl until well combined and topping resembles wet sand.  
2.  Set aside.

For the bread - 
1.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Whisk flour, baking powder, and baking soda together in bowl.
3.  Combine pumpkin puree, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in large saucepan over medium heat.
4.  Stir constantly and cook for 6-8 minutes until reduced to 1 1/2 cups.
5.  Remove pot from heat.
6.  Stir in granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, and cream cheese until combined.
7.  Let mixture stand for 5 minutes.
8.  Whisk until no visible pieces of cream cheese remain.
9.  In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and buttermilk.
10.  Add egg mixture to pumpkin mixture and whisk to combine.
11.  Fold flour mixture into pumpkin mixture until combined.
12.  Fold walnuts into batter (optional).
13.  Grease two 8.5 x 4.5 loaf pans.
14.  Evenly pour batter into prepared pans.
15.  Sprinkle topping evenly over top of each loaf.
16.  Bake until skewer inserted in center of loaves comes out clean - about 45 to 50 minutes.  (mine had to cook closer to 60 minutes)
17.  Let breads cool in pans on wire rack for 20 minutes.
18.  Remove breads from pans and let cool for at least 1.5 hours.
19.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Mark's notes - 

1.  Essentially, you will have bowl 1 with the topping mixture.  You will have bowl 2 with the flour mixture.  You will have bowl 3 with the pumpkin puree mixture.  You will have bowl 4 with the egg mixture.  At the end, bowl 4 gets dumped into bowl 3 and whisked.  Then bowl 2 gets folded into bowl 3.  Pour bowl 3 into prepared loaf pans and evenly sprinkle the toppings from bowl 1 over both loaves.

2.  The original instructions said to cook 45-50 minutes.  I had to cook mine closer to 60-65 minutes to cook through.

4.  I did not use any brown sugar.  I substituted all brown sugar with granulated sugar.

5.  I did not use the walnuts.  Abby loves pumpkin pie but does not like nuts, and so I left those out.  Just a personal preference for Abby.

6.  I did not use buttermilk.  I used 1/4 cup yogurt.

7.  I did not use the ground cloves.  I don't like ground cloves and I don't have them in my spice collection, and so I always leave it out.  Just a personal preference of mine.  (Need to add spice rack to my Christmas list - I had one.  I don't know what happened to it unfortunately).

Attempt # 1 - please feel free to smile, laugh, giggle, etc. 

I do not have two 8.5 x 4.5 loaf pans.  I have two 9 x 5 loaf pans. One was in the dishwasher from the zucchini bread.  I decided to pour the entire batter into one 9 x 5 loaf pan.  I was thinking, 'Well, this works for my banana bread.'  Wow.  Big mistake.  Disaster in progress.  I turned on the oven light and saw it rising, rising, rising, and about to spill over.  I pulled it out after 50 minutes, it was not done.  I trimmed off some of the edges so it wouldn't just fall off in the oven.  I put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.  Still not cooked through.  Another 15 minutes perhaps.  Okay.  Just 15 more then it should be cooked through definitely.  All I managed to do was burn the top, and it never cooked through.  I had to throw it all away and try again, and refer to Mark's Kitchen Rules #2, #3, #5, and almost #8.

Here is a picture of the end result from the failed single loaf:

Attempt #2
The next day, determined to get this right, I went to the grocery store, got another can of pumpkin puree, and tried again.  I followed the instructions.  I used two 9 x 5 loaf pans.  (I need to add two 8.5 x 4.5 loaf pans to my Christmas list).  Anyway, here is a picture of the end result:

Happy baking!



Lam, Lan. (2012, September and October). Really Good Pumpkin Bread.  Cook’s Illustrated, p.24.

Zucchini Bread

Today, I made a Zucchini Bread for the first time.  I used the recipe from Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.

Ingredients:

2 small zucchini

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

6 tablespoon unsalted butter - melted and cooled

2 large eggs

1/4 cup plain whole-milk or low-fat yogurt

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted and chopped

Instructions:

1.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Wash and shred 2 small zucchini - use smaller zucchinis as these have smaller and drier seeds.  If using larger zucchini, cut in half and scoop the seeds out, then shred.  Shred zucchinis using the large holes of a box grater.

3.  Squeeze shredded zucchini between several pieces of paper towels to get rid of extra moisture.

4.  In large bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, ground cinnamon, allspice, and salt.

5.  In medium bowl, whisk sugar, melted butter, eggs, yogurt, and lemon juice together until smooth.

6.  Gently fold shredded zucchini and yogurt mixture into the flour mixture with a rubber spatula until just combined - do not over mix.  Repeat - do not over mix.  

7.  Gently fold in pecans.

8.  Grease loaf pan.

9.  Pour batter into loaf pan.  

10.  Bake until golden brown - about 1 hour - rotating half way through.

11.  Let loaf cool for 10 minutes, then let cool on wire rack for 1 hour.

Mark's Notes - 

1.  Before I even started this recipe, I researched on ehow.com on how to shred a zucchini. I didn't know anything about zucchinis such as do you need to peel the skin off like a banana, can you eat the seeds, etc.  Apparently, both are okay to eat, just cooking the seeds in the bread makes it quite bitter.  The skin is where all the healthy nutrients are.

2.  I did not have any allspice in the house and so I just substituted 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg because I like nutmeg and didn't feel like researching the super exact substitute for allspice.

3.  I used the yogurt rather than the whole milk.

4.  My first attempt and the bread collapsed.  I did a little research on this and quick breads will collapse due to over stirring.  That's why I put in the instructions the emphasis on not over stirring.

5.  I forgot to let the butter cool before mixing that in, and that probably contributed to the bread collapsing as well.

6.  My wife, Trish, said it still turned out nummy.  So, that's always good.

7.  I have a couple more zucchinis in the kitchen so I can try another batch fairly soon, and hopefully, it won't collapse.

8.  I honestly believe that Banana Bread is just a little easier in that with bananas all you have to do is mash those up.  Peeling the zucchinis requires a little more effort but still worthwhile.