Pumpkin Bread

'Tis the season to make everything pumpkin and this pumpkin bread is super moist and easy to make. Delicious and decadent. A lovely dark amber colour with a nice seeded date top. I much prefer this over banana bread. There is definitely more to this pumpkin loaf than meets the pumpkin pie eye.       

Pumpkin Bread

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1 1/2 cups (200g) of all purpose flour 

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup (200g) of caster sugar or coconut sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon British mixed spice or pumpkin pie spice

freshly grated nutmeg or 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

1 cup of pumpkin purée

1/2 cup of vegetable oil 

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup water

3 teaspoons of molasses

Options: 1 teaspoon of orange zest and or about 1/2 cup (120ml) chopped walnuts.

Topping: handful of pumpkin seeds, chopped dried dates and sunflower seeds

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC).

Butter and flour a loaf tin. Then line the bottom of the prepared tin with a piece of parchment paper. Set aside. Trust me, adding parchment paper will help ease the loaf out of the tin and prevent it from from cracking.

In a large bowl combine the flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and British mixed spice. Set aside.

In another bowl combine the pumpkin purée, vegetable oil, water, molasses, and orange zest, if using. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Making sure that there is no dry flour in the batter. Then gently stir in the chopped walnuts, if adding. 

Pour into the prepared baking tin; making sure that the batter is even and nice and smooth on top. Spread the topping: pumpkin seeds, chopped dried dates, and sunflower seeds on top. 

Place in the oven and bake for about 45 to 60 minutes or until a knife in the centre comes out clean and the loaf is nicely darkened. 

Let cool slightly in the loaf pan before running a spatula around the sides, to loosen before removing from the pan and allowing to cool further on a wire rack.

Notes: I had a heavy duty light loaf tin therefore I baked the pumpkin loaf for a full 60 minutes. If I had a darker tin then perhaps the loaf would have needed less time, as darker tins or pans cook their contents more quickly than light tins or pans. The topping can be optional. If you can't have nuts then omit them. You can replace the vegetable oil with apple sauce or reduce the amount of oil to 1/3 cup. Although I didn't you can add 1 to 2 tablespoons of ground flax seed to the dry ingredients. I omitted the orange zest as I wanted full pumpkin flavour.  

Super moist and delicious! 

Hope everyone is having a good week. - JD