Foodie Friday -- Pumpkin Streusel Bread

My first Foodie Friday recipe after a long break.
I had some leftover canned pumpkin and needed to find a way to use it. This recipe is the result.
And it was polished off quite quickly!

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Streusel Bread

Streusel:

¾ cup chopped walnuts

2 T butter

2-3 T sugar

1 T flour

1 t. cinnamon

Mix well, using fingers to break butter into tiny pieces.

Pumpkin batter:

1 2/3 cup flour

1 ½ cup sugar

1 t. baking soda

¼ t. baking powder

¾ t. salt

½ t. ground cloves

½ t. nutmeg

½ t. cinnamon

2 eggs

½ cup vegetable oil

1 1/3 cup pure pumpkin

½ cup water

Sift dry ingredients together. Add eggs, oil, pumpkin and water. Beat well. Pour ½ of batter into greased and floured* loaf pan, sprinkle with ½ of streusel mixture. Swirl with knife. Add remaining batter and sprinkle remaining streusel on top. Bake at 325 degrees F. for about 1 hour 20 minutes, or until top springs back. Cool on wire rack for 15 minutes. Turn out of pan and cool completely.

Tips and Tricks:

·         I’ve become a HUGE fan of parchment paper, especially since my loaf pans are the “folded” kind, which means you can never get the corners completely clean.

·         Measure parchment and fold neatly so it fits the bottom of the pan. Flatten the corner edges and staple them into shape Repeat for all corners.

·         I did spray a little Pam on the paper, but probably didn’t need to.

·         Feel free to make more streusel. I only had ¾ cup of walnuts, so I had to make due.

·         To deepen the flavor of the streusel use brown sugar—dark brown sugar will give the deepest flavor.

·         Yes, sift the dry ingredients. I have a battery operated sifter, but any type of mesh wire sieve will work. Use a spoon to work the flour mixture through the sieve.

·         If you don’t have all the spices, you could probably make due with McCormick’s pumpkin pie spice. It has ginger and allspice along with the above ingredients.

·         I had to use about ½ cup of pumpkin from a 15 oz. can for a different recipe and this was what I had left. The original recipe called for only 1 cup. If you add more pumpkin (like the entire can) you might want to cut back on the water.

·         I used the convection oven setting for this recipe. I wanted more circulation around the pan due to the longer time in the oven.

·         After removing the bread from the pan, I let it cool for a little longer before removing the parchment paper so the bread could cool completely

Foodie Friday -- Banana Nut Bread

Yeah, yeah, don't fall off your chair just because I'm finally posting a Foodie Friday blog post.

It all started when I bought a bunch of bananas. And they ripened. Quickly, too quickly. I had four that were seriously overripe and I needed to do something with them. Previously, I would peel, slice and freeze them for smoothies, but I didn't want to have a bunch of bananas in the freezer.

So I dug out my mom's banana bread recipe.

Besides, I wanted to try out my Mother's Day gift--Temp-tations Bakeware.

Here's the recipe:

Banana Nut Bread

2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
3 Tbls. sour milk or buttermilk
1 cup mashed bananas
2 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Thoroughly mix together sugar, shortening and eggs. Stir in milk and bananas. Mix dry ingredients together and stir in. Blend in nuts. Pour into well-greased 9 X 5 X 3 inch loaf pan. Let stand 20 min before baking. Bake 60-65 minutes at 350 degrees until done.

Hints & Suggestions:

• check for doneness by inserting toothpick into center of loaf. Gooey on the toothpick means it needs to cook longer
• spread the raw dough to the edges, indenting the center--if you want it to be more even than the poofy one I turned out.
• my loaf pan was slightly smaller than the recommended size--adjust the cooking time, as needed
• Other fruit can be used: apples, finely diced, or canned pumpkin, but you might want to add spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, etc.

Enjoy!
Later, Peeps

FOODIE FRIDAY -- Spiced Pumpkin Nut Bread

I don’t really have a story about this recipe. I wanted a pumpkin bread recipe for the holidays. I searched on the Internet. And I found one that I liked. Simple. The Internet is a wonderful thing. I made this bread a few days ago. It cooked quicker than I expected--probably due to the dark loaf pans that I used--so it’s a good thing I tend to set my timers a little on the early side to check them. The bread has a nice moist texture to it.

Spiced Pumpkin Nut Bread

4 cups flour

1 Tbls. pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
1 can (16 oz.) Libby’s 100% pure pumpkin
2 cups brown sugar, packed
1 cup apple juice
4 large eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chopped nuts, divided

Preheat oven to 350° degrees. Grease 2 (TWO) 9 x 5-inch loaf pans.

Sift flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Combine pumpkin, sugar, apple juice, eggs, oil and vanilla extract in large bowl, stir well. Stir in flour mixture and ¾ cup of nuts just until moistened. Spoon into prepared loaf pans. Sprinkle remaining ¼ cup of nuts over top of loaves.

Bake for 60 to 70 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes, remove loaves from pans to cool completely.

 Later, Peeps!

I have to pack up my Christmas stuff today. Hopefully, I'll be back 100% next week. If you haven't done it yet, you might want to look at your 2011 goals and see how you did. And think about your 2012 goals. Remember to keep your goals within YOUR power.

Getting started

Setting yearly goals