Pumpkin Bread

Recently, the leaves have began to turn here in Provo. As the weather has changed with the leaves, so have my tastebuds. All I've been wanting is warm, hearty fall foods and pumpkin bread (I also crave the aroma that spice breads put off)! However, I have had a dilema. All the recipes I've used in the past for pumpkin bread were insanely unhealthy! So, after a bit of searching, I found a recipe on allrecipes.com (you can find anything there) for a "healthified" version of pumpkin bread. I tweeked it a bit and here it is:

6 Tbls. Water

1 c. Sugar

1 c. Pumpkin Puree

1/2 c. Applesauce

A splash of Vanilla Extract

1 c. All-Purpose Flour

2/3 c. Wheat Pastry Flour

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1 tsp. Cinnamon

3/4 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 tsp. Ground Nutmeg

1/4 tsp. Ground Cloves

A pinch of ginger

Mix together the water, sugar, pumpkin, applesauce, and vanilla until well combined. In a seperate bowl mix together all the dry ingredients. Add the dry to the wet and mix until smooth. Pour batter into a greased 9x5 in bread pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 F until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (approx. 1 hour).

*The original recipe called for 2 Tbls. flax seed meal to be added to the water. I didn't have any meal on hand, but I did have some oat bran, so I threw some of that in for the heck of it.

I'm putting this recipe to the real test tomorrow when I take it to class along with a very popular, non-healthy pumpkin bread recipe that looks identical. We'll see how well the crowd likes it in comparrison to the traditional, high-sugar, high-fat variety!

I did however just take a taste of the warm bread right after I took a picture just a second ago and it was exactly what I've been craving! Moist, good flavor...quite delish and guilt free!!!