(So sorry, I never took a picture of my gift loaves.)
I mentioned in previous blog that my holiday food gift this year was a delicious pumpkin chocolate chip bread. It’s based on a muffin recipes form allrecipes.com, however I made some changes, among other things, doubling the recipe so I could get lots of small loaves and/or at least two larger loaves. Use the best quality dark chocolate chips you can find: I use Ghirardelli’s. You may use fewer chocolate chips and add soome toasted walnuts, rubbed to remove the brown “paper” on the outside. You can also make a version with applesauce or even apple butter (if the latter, reduce brown sugar to 1 cup). Any other pureed soft fruit could also be used, so long as it’s not too watery. I wondered what would happen if you used chunky cranberry sauce.
I used the rest of the pumpkin to make the pumpkin pasta mentioned in an earlier blog. Print and file both for next holiday time.
A reader wrote to beg a recipe:
Pumpkin spice chocolate quick bread
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (half a large can)
3/4 cup liquid (half water, half milk or half-and-half)
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 heaping teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 heaping teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 400 degrees; be sure the rack you’re using in the middle of the oven. Oil-spray 2 large (10-by-5-inch) loaf pans and one mini loaf pan OR prepare 5 mini loaf pans.
In a large bowl, whisk together, sugar oil and eggs. In a separate bowl, whisk together dry ingredients except for chocolate chips. Stir the wet mixture into the dry and then stir in the pumpkin puree. Finally, add the chocolate chips. Scrape batter into prepared pans, three-quarters of the way up and no more.
Place on a baking sheet if you’re using those flexible disposable pans.
Bake 20-25 minutes. Stick a skewer in to be sure they’re done but if you poke a chocolate chip, clean the skewer and try again. Cool on a rack.
This bread remains moist for quite a long time, even if unrefrigerated.