Holiday food gifts: pumpkin bread recipe

Fri, Nov 28 2008 at 12:54 PM

Homemade food gifts are a wonderful way to remember teachers, crossing guards, co-workers, and others when you want to say thank you at the holidays. One of my favorite homemade food gifts to give around the holidays is mini pumpkin bread loaves. This recipe makes six 5x3 inch loaves.

Years ago, I invested in good quality mini loaf pans and that investment has allowed me to make this inexpensive recipe as holiday gifts year after year. It uses spices traditionally associated with the holidays - nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon - and smells wonderful. This recipe can easily be converted into an organic recipe by using all organic ingredients.

Pumpkin Bread Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup of canola oil
3 cups of sugar
4 eggs
2 cups fresh or canned pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
2 tsp salt
1 cup raisins

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Grease and flour (or use non-stick spray) six 5x3 inch loaf pans
In a large bowl, mix together sugar, oil and eggs
Stir in pumpkin and water
In a separate bowl mixed together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and all the spices
Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and combine completely
Gently stir in the *raisins
Pour evenly into the six prepared pans
Place pans on a cookie sheet to make it easy to put in and out of oven
Bake for 45-50 minutes

* My boys are not a fan of raisins. When making this for my family, I make the recipe up to the raisins, pour the raisinless batter into two of the pans, then add ¾ cup of raisins to the rest of the batter before filing the rest of the pans.

The opinions expressed by MNN Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of MNN.com. While we have reviewed their content to make sure it complies with our Terms and Conditions, MNN is not responsible for the accuracy of any of their information.

Previous Post
Find wine happenings near you

Next Post
Ready for plastic wine bottles?

You might also like:

Join the conversation

Comments: 4

Bakersbest Oct 26 2009 at 1:32 PM

As a frequent baker who loves to prepare delicious and nutritious baked goods for my family, I was stunned to see the amount of oil in this pumpkin bread recipe and the number of eggs. There is absolutely no reason to include so much oil (fat and cholesterol) when there are many healthy and tasty ingredients that create a moist and tasty bread. I would cut the oil back by half and add a half cup of applesauce, along with using eggbeaters equivalent to 2 eggs (which is 1/2 cup) and skip the additional 2

.... More

eggs. Skim buttermilk is another healthy and lowfat ingredient that I often substitute for oil in quick bread recipes. Baking can equate healthy if you are a creative and educated cook!