Tasty Tuesday: Pumpkin Bread

Have I mentioned how much I love quick breads? Oh, I have? Well, I really do. Not just because they're quick and easy, but because they taste soooo yummy!

We showed how Jake made banana bread all by himself. 

And in our chocolate chai bread post, Alyssa used the hand-mixer by herself for the first time!

Here, you'll see Alyssa has improved much in the kitchen during the last 10 months.

She cracked the eggs all by herself.

Better yet - she dropped NO pieces of shell!

Eating a marshmallow while making the bread? Multitasking already. Girl after my own heart. She's come a long way from the first time she used the mixer.

The kids just love grating the nutmeg. She wanted to turn the entire seed to powder. It's a good thing it's the season of spice baking.

And since when did she learn to dump a bowl of something into another bowl without pouring it on the counter in the process???

I'm amazed while watching my children in the kitchen. They've learned so much and truly enjoy creating delicious foods. 

I'd better be careful though - pretty soon they just might kick me out of the kitchen and take over for good!

We made a simple glaze (1 1/4 cup powdered sugar & 3 tablespoons milk) and drizzled it on top of one loaf after it (mostly) cooled.

For the second loaf, we swirled 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips into the batter before baking.

Which one is better? You be the judge! Try this recipe yourself and see. You really can't go wrong with this one. Try adding walnuts, cranberries, white chocolate chips, or caramel. No matter how we've made it, we always love it! Even plain, it still ranks up at the top of my list for quick breads - and that's saying something!

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree                           
4 eggs                                                               
1 c vegetable oil                                               
2/3 c water                                                         

2 c white sugar                                                   

1 c brown sugar                                                 
3 1/2 c all-purpose flour   
2 ts baking soda
1 1/2 ts salt
1 ts ground cinnamon   
1 ts ground nutmeg
1/2 ts ground cloves
1/4 ts ground ginger
                                                               
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9x5 inch loaf pans.

2. 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.

3. Bake for about 60 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.