November 7, 2024

A family project: Pumpkin baking plus recipes!

I just pulled a batch of bran muffins out of the oven to go with breakfast, but here I am, sipping on hot ginger tea and nibbling on fresh pumpkin bread…mmm!

Yesterday we baked a huge pumpkin–one from a friend’s garden, and the filling we subsequently scraped out of it was enough for three pumpkin pies and seven mini-loaves of pumpkin bread. Yum! Hubby arrived home early, in the middle of the pureeing process, and thought we had a weird golden applesauce thing going on! Our pumpkin “filling”, yellow-gold in color, had the soft consistency of applesauce. I worried that it wouldn’t set up in pie, but it did, and looks great! We haven’t sampled it yet, saving it for tonight’s dessert…if you want more info on how to bake a pumpkin and make a pie from scratch, I used this helpful site and recipe: Organic Pumpkin Pie From Scratch. I was searching specifically for a pie recipe that included sorghum, and this pie delivers! It also uses heavy cream and alllll the fall spices! Our house smells so delicious!

Here is my recipe for Pumpkin Bread, and it’s never been this mouth-watering with store-bought canned pumpkin! This makes a great Christmas gift as a mini-loaf included with a trio of other types of quick breads, such as my Poppyseed Bread.

Pumpkin Bread

  • 3 cups sugar
  • 1 cup oil (applesauce can be substituted)
  • 1 can pumpkin (or 15 oz home-baked pumpkin puree–almost two cups)
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 4 eggs
  • 3 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp soda
  • 2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 3 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 cup pecans (optional)

Blend the first five ingredients and then add the rest. Bake at 350F for one hour. Make 2 loaves, or five mini-loaves. Easy, huh.

As I did up last night’s dishes after our baking spree, I couldn’t help thinking, “And people would rather their ‘family time’ be spent gathered round the TV?” Here our evening flew by, working and playing together…oldest and I working on pie crusts and fillings, youngests giggling over Go Fish games and Memory. We haven’t yet regretted our choice to go “no tv” over a year ago…in fact, I can’t believe it took us so long.

Got to go feed some hungry girls…have a blessed day!

10 thoughts on “A family project: Pumpkin baking plus recipes!

  1. How I wish I could bake!! You make it sound so easy and it really isn’t. My poor family can attest to my baking,lol!

    I have tried several times making homemade yeast rolls and they rise at first, but once in the oven they turn into golf balls.

    Sounds delicious though, I wish I was your and Aimz’ neighbor.

    Leticia’s last blog post..LONG WEEKEND…

  2. Mmm, hot mint tea sounds yummy, I want to try to grow some–is yours from your herb garden, Amy?

    You’re sweet, Colleen! If you were my neighbor…you could have one for free! 😉

    Hi Jen! It’s perfect for this time of year, here in the US anyway! 😉 Do you have a holiday equivalent for our Thanksgiving day? It’s next Thursday…

    Dear Leticia…you’re not the only one who sometimes has trouble with yeast rolls…I’m not sure why they sometimes give people fits. Could be bad yeast, or too hot of water. There probably is a perfectly good reason, and it’s NOT you. You need to find a generous hearted bread baker to take you in and walk you through making yeast breads. Just don’t give up on baking, I’ll tell you I have a young mom friend who didn’t even know how to grate cheese three years ago, and now she creates fantastic and difficult culinary masterpieces. I would have NEVER thought she had it in her, but she had the “want to”, which meant surviving several failures and trying again. And asking people for help is not admitting failure! Look at me taking advantage of Farmer John’s tutelage–his wife has taught me how to use a pressure canner, and how to butcher chickens, and though I’ve been there several times now, I still am not hugely confident about the process!

    Anyhow, not to ramble on, but we’ve all got areas of life in which we feel we’re hopeless. Gardening was one for me, for a long time. This year’s crop built a little more confidence in me.

    (((hugs)))

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