Simply in Season: Pumpkin Bread & How to Roast a Pumpkin

I'm not a baker. I have this philosophy that you're either a baker or a cook and if you do both, there has to be one you prefer. I consider myself more of a cook. But this time of year, with the holidays quickly upon us, I begin to dream of warm and delicious baked goods. So the other day at the office, when my friend Eliz started talking about her recipe for pumpkin bread, I knew I had to raise up my courage and get messy in the kitchen. And messy is exactly what I got. Notice the lack of pictures from the pumpkin roasting to the final product? Trust me, you're not missing anything. Eliz's recipe calls for pumpkin puree from a can, but she also told me she likes to roast her own pumpkins and puree them and she taught me how to do that too. So here is her recipe and how to roast a pumpkin. Thanks, Eliz!

To Roast the Pumpkin:

Get one sugar pumpkin. Cut off the top, cut in half, and clean out the guts. Rub olive oil on each side of the pumpkin and place it, face down, on a cookie sheet in the oven @ 400 degrees for 1 hour.

When it comes out, the skin will be raised like in the picture and easy to pull off.

To Puree:

Rough chop the pumpkin and place in a food processor or blender. I used a blender and it was a little hard to puree, so I added the vegetable oil that the bread recipe calls for to make the mixture easier to puree.

For the Pumpkin Bread You'll Need:

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups white sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.

Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

I didn't have 3 loaf pans so I used one loaf pan and a casserole dish so the bread turned out a lot shorter but it's still delicious! Also, I used baking powder instead of soda, and I think this affected how the bread rose. It still worked out though.

What's your favorite pumpkin recipe? Share with us in the comments. :)