Hungree Girl: Pumpkin Bread/Pumpkin Muffins

The pumpkin party continues with a fall classic: pumpkin bread. It’s extremely dense and moist, taking on a cake–like quality that regular bread lacks. Flecks of typical pumpkin pie spices like ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg accompany a strong pumpkin flavor, think banana bread minus the banana and replaced with pumpkin. This bread is the absolute definition of fall. Eat it plain. Warm it up and slather some butter on it with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Turn it into French toast. If you’re like me, you can do all three. But honestly, it doesn’t matter what you do with it, because it’s just so FREAKING good. It’s also the ultimate fall present too. If you’re feeling like you want to brighten up someone’s day, double this recipe or use muffin tins instead and you will make some people VERY happy. I’m thinking about making this recipe in bulk and standing on the main stretch of campus and handing some muffins out. Talk about making friends. Maybe Romney or Obama should adopt this strategy. While the polls are close, if they were to start bribing people with these, I have a feeling they’d win some people over and totally take the lead….now that's what I call politics.

Pumpkin Bread/Muffins *recipe slightly adapted from My Baking Addiction

Ingredients

one 15 oz. can pumpkin puree, 1 1/2 cups

4 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2/3 cup water

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbs maple syrup

2 1/2 cups sugar

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp nutmeg

Recipe: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease your loaf pan or muffin tins. In a bowl fitted with an electric mixer, combine pumpkin, eggs, oil, water, vanilla, maple syrup and sugar. Beat until well blended. Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Gradually stir them into the pumpkin mixture until just mixed. Pour batter into prepared bans. Bake for 60-70 minutes (for loaf, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf/comes out clean. If using muffin tins, cook about 12 minutes.