Pumpkin Bread

To continue with theme of pumpkin, today's recipe was again submitted by Jen and her daughter Claire with a few alterations I made to it.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour*
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour*
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar (Jen uses honey which makes the bread softer, but please ask your pediatrician before introducing honey before 2 years old)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup pumpkin puree/organic canned pumpkin (FYI you should have exactly one cup of canned pumpkin left after making the pumpkin waffle post we published recently)
• ½ cup vegetable or olive oil
• 2 eggs, beaten
• ¼ cup of water (cut this in half if using honey instead of sugar)
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ½ cup chopped nuts (optional, I would omit for small babies)

*Jen uses 1 1/2 cups aramanth instead of the two flours I listed above

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar (if using honey, mix with second phase not dry mix) and baking soda.
3. Mix the pumpkin, oil, eggs, water and spices (and honey, if using honey) together, then combine with the dry ingredients, but do not stir too much!
4. Stir in the nuts.
5. Pour into a well-buttered or sprayed loaf or mini loaf pan . Bake 50-60 minutes until golden brown or until a toothpick comes out clean. If using a mini-loaf pan, check it at 40 minutes.
6. Cool for 10 minutues then turn out of the pan and cool on a rack.
7. Serve warm or room temperature.

Yield: 8 mini loaves or one loaf pan

Timing: This is very soft and if omitting nuts, it could be easily given at 12 months.

Storage: Store in an air tight container or wrapped in plastic wrap for few days. I wrap some of my mini loaves in plastic wrap and place in a freezer bag and freeze for up to two months.

Difficulty: 2 out of 5; anything that requires me to wait nearly an hour as I smell it bake is at least a 2 on the difficulty scale!

Epicutie Rating: Yummy in the Tummy...to the max!!! See right side of page for descriptions.

Little Joy cannot eat enough of this stuff! This makes a great dessert or snack to throw in your bag when you are in a pinch.