‘Tis definitely the season for pumpkin recipes. Breads, pies, custards, ravioli, soups, drinks, and so on abound. I love autumn for so many reasons, and pumpkin is right up there near the top.
A week or so I cooked the three pumpkins we had on hand – pumpkins that were not carved for Halloween because, frankly, we’d rather not waste the innards that way- and pureed the flesh.
I ended up with about 5 lbs of puree – which works out to just over 5 cans, if you’re buying the 15 oz size at the store.
I froze four pounds of it and used the remaining pound to make a double batch of bread. Oh, how I’ve been longing for pumpkin muffins or pumpkin bread. I’ll be making a pie next week for Thanksgiving, of course, and I foresee other pumpkiny recipes in the near future as well. But I had to start with pumpkin bread. Just ‘cuz.
I also wanted to put some sort of spin on it, basically because it’s fun to play, so I looked around the cupboards and the pantry and the fridge and the freezer.
Aha. There it was. In the freezer:
It’s some of the oatmeal mixture left over from making the Strawberry Pecan Oat Bars several weeks ago. Perfect!
Time to get to work. First, I greased two loaf pans. And I preheated the oven to 350 degrees F.
Next, I measured out all my ingredients. Eggs, pumpkin, all the dry ingredients, brown sugar, white sugar, butter, buttermilk, and vanilla. I think that’s everything. I’ll list it all in the recipe at the end of this post anyway.
So…combine butter and sugars…add eggs…vanilla…pumpkin…buttermilk…and then the dry ingredients.
Then divide between the two pans.
BUT WAIT!
I scraped about a third of the batter into each pan, saving a third in the bowl. Then I sprinkled about a third of the streusel mixture over the batter in each pan.
Then I scraped half of the remaining batter into each pan on top of the oaty mixture, and THEN I sprinkled the rest of the remaining oats and nuts and things on top of each loaf.
Time to bake them!
I put them in the oven on a rack in the center of the oven and baked them for close to an hour. Once they were gorgeously brown and starting to pull away from the edges of the pan, I pulled them.
And OHHHH did they smell good. It was incredibly hard not to just take the bread out of the pans and start slicing, but I restrained myself.
It helped that no one else was home begging to have some, because I might have given in to the overwhelming and overpowering peer pressure.
Once I did make that first slice, the bread disappeared pretty quickly. Like, maybe, in two days.
The bread is fabulous – moist and flavorful with the occasional crunch of pecan and an extra little hint of brown sugar here and there.
You can’t really see the streusel inside…
But that’s okay.
We’re already nearly done with the second loaf as well. It’s great plain, or with a schmear of cream cheese or softened butter. I might just finish this up today myself.
Good thing I have more pumpkin in the freezer.
I’ll be needing it soon.
Pumpkin Streusel Bread
makes 2 standard loaves
Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1/2 cup buttermilk
roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups leftover streusel mixture (about 3/4 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, pinch of salt, 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces, 3/4 cups oats – combined well.)
What to do:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans.
2. Whisk together all the dry ingredients.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and sugars. Beat until light.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping bowl down in between each egg and mixing thoroughly before adding the next egg. Slowly add in vanilla, then pumpkin puree, then buttermilk.
5. Slowly add dry ingredients and blend until just combined. Don’t over mix!
6. Scrape a third of the batter into each of the two pans. Reserve remaining third for now. Sprinkle a third of the streusel mixture over the batter in each pan. Now top streusel in each pan with half of remaining batter. Finally, sprinkle remaining streusel over each loaf-to-be.
7. Bake 50-60 minutes, or until cake is nicely browned and starting to pull away from the sides of the pans. Allow loaves to cool for about fifteen minutes in pans, then remove and let them finish cooling on a rack.
Enjoy!
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