The Battle Begins
I love fall – it’s one of my favorite seasons. I love pumpkin spice. I love pumpkins. Gourds make me happy.The days are less hot, which is nice, and the evenings cool off quickly, which is nice. Cool evenings are the best because they coincide with pumpkin-spice season and I can bear to turn on the oven again. Which means I can bake pumpkin bread again. Which means baby puffs are ecstatic – when they’re not in an all-out brawl over the loaf.
One Loaf to Rule Them All
It all started five years ago, my kids’ obsession with pumpkin bread.Five years ago I had to abandon store-bought loaves and mixes, and come up with my own recipe to accommodate Badger’s allergies. (This is also when my sister’s gift of a KitchenAid stand mixer saved all our lives – making cakes and breads from scratch requires a ridiculous amount of mixing)
After a lot of experimentation, and some questionable results, I found a solid recipe that yields moist, yummy pumpkin bread – two delicious loaves at a time.
In addition to moist and yummy, this pumpkin bread is also not terrible for you – the moist comes from the cup-and-a-half of pumpkin in each loaf, mixed with the right amount of spice and whole-grain flour…mmmmm…it’s really high in fiber.
It makes you poop*.
If you eat a lot, you poo a lot. Bright-orange poo all up in the place.
*It does not have this effect on me or the older Puffettes, since we eat a reasonable amount and generally eat a fiber-rich diet all the time. Everything’s all normal here.
Pumpkin, Pumpkin, The Fibrous Food –The More You Eat, The More You Poo
Yes, each of my kids has had to learn the hard way that you don’t want to eat a half-loaf of pumpkin bread in a single sitting. For the older two, the inevitable deluge of Day-Glo poo was enough to stop them from gorging themselves.But Badger is, well, a badger. She does not give a single shit.
Each loaf must be guarded lest she slink off and wolf it down when no one’s looking. On one occasion, she licked the full length of each loaf as they were cooling, fresh out of the oven, in a failed attempt to claim them both as hers.
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| Yep, snarfed most of the loaf during her 'alone time' |
Yes, alone. In the kitchen. With the pumpkin bread. (I can’t believe he fell for it either, but he was trying to be sensitive to her needs…awwwwww)
By the time I found out, well, tragedy.
Everyone was upset. Tears were shed. Her tummy was grumbling.
She. Did. Not. Care.
The next day, we all suffered through the awesome flatulence that inevitably results when a 35-pound person eats a half-pound of pumpkin in a single go.
Ooof
The next night, Mr. Puff and I were lingering over after-dinner talk when a little Badger went streaking by and pounded up the stairs. A galloping Quokka was in hot pursuit.There was screaming, wailing and the distinct sound of slapping. When we go upstairs, Quokka was holding her slapped face, and Badger was backed into a corner clutching the purloined tuppy of pumpkin bread to her chest.
“I caught her stealing the last of the pumpkin bread,” Quokka explained, clutching her welted cheek.
Badger shook her head, lower lip set in a pout, “No I didn’t,” she exclaimed in flagrant defiance of the stolen loaf currently clasped to her little, heaving chest.
I pointed at it, “What’s that then?”
“Nothing!”
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| No pumpkin bread here! |
“Well, hand nothing over. You can’t eat the rest of it. For one thing, it’s not fair to everyone else if you eat it all. For another, you’re just going to make yourself sick.”
After more futile negotiation, we wrested the pumpkin bread out of her arms, accompanied by distraught wailing, and hid it. Quokka got an ice pack for her face, and Badger got a time out for theft and violence.
So, it’s Fall Again
Cool nights, blushing trees and pumpkin bread. Ahhhhh, pumpkin bread.The oven’s been fired up and the first two moist, scrumptious loaves popped out to cool.
Let the 5th Annual Pumpkin Games begin!
And may the odds be ever in your favor.
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| Pumpkins! And gourds!! |
Note:
For those who’d like to train for the Pumpkin Bread Games, I give you the recipe. Happy baking!(Please remember, this has been customized and tweaked to work with our alternative ingredients – I’m really not sure how, for example, real butter may affect the results)
Yummy, Moist Pumpkin Bread
Single loaf (double everything if you want two magnificent, pumpkiny loaves)1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
¾ tsp ground nutmeg
¾ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp baking powder
1/3 cup almond milk
½ tsp vanilla
6 Tbsp futter** (if doubling ¾ cup)
1 ¼ cup sugar
2 large eggs (or ½ cup Egg Beaters – if using real eggs, make sure they hit that mark)
1 ½ cup pumpkin puree
(all spices are heaping spoonfuls)
Bowl 1:
Mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, ginger, nutmeg, cloves & baking powder. Set aside.
Bowl 2 (or measuring cup):
Mix milk & vanilla.
Bowl 3:
Cream futter, then gradually add sugar. Once thoroughly mixed, beat in eggs.
Add pumpkin and mix at low speed.
Gradually add flour and milk mixtures alternating each.
Bake:
One hour @ 350 in 9x5 loaf pan (or until a knife comes out clean – sometimes that’s more like 1:10 baking time – metal pans bake faster than glass)
**Futter = Fake Butter – we use Earth Balance soy-free, butter replacement
