Survival Sunday 20

It may be Basic, but there's a reason people love pumpkin spice everything, and that's because when it's done right, pumpkin and the spices associated taste. really. good.

Which is one of the reasons I woke up craving pumpkin bread yesterday. Specifically, chocolate chip pumpkin bread.

The recipe is one I got from my mother's The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook 2001 - 2015 15th Anniversary Edition, but with a little personalized twist.

This is the page. I'm not sure why I took this picture...

According to the recipe, you'll need:

• 2 cups (10-oz) all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 (15-oz) can unsweetened pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves (eyeball it if, like me, you lack a 1/8 tsp)
• 1 cup (7-oz) granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed (7-oz) light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 4-oz cream cheese, cut into 12 pieces
• 4 large eggs
• 1/4 cup buttermilk (or 1/4 cup milk with 1/4 tsp vinegar - I used apple cider vinegar)
• 1 cup walnuts, toasted & chopped fine
• 1 cup mini chocolate chips

As you can see, I had to make some substitutions, and I also owe my mother a replacement can of pumpkin... but the mini chocolate chips are perfect for this - they melt into the batter/dough and stay in place much better than bigger ones!

I didn't use the white vinegar and I should have cut the cheese up much smaller!

This is the apple cider vinegar.

Here's my Sour Milk, which I used in place of buttermilk!

My ingredients are all lined up.
Now if only I could've premeasured everything into separate containers...
Tons of extra cleanup, yet somehow half the hassle!

Now, the first things we're going to do are the first things you always do in cooking, after you assemble your ingredients. You preheat your oven (350℉) and prep your pans.

We're making 2 loaves of chocolate chip pumpkin bread here, so we'll grease both of our bread pans! Just take some shortening and dip into the container with a paper towel over your fingers. Then smear the shortening all around your pans until they're nice and greasy. This recipe does not call for flouring your pans, either, so that's a relief.

Vegetarians rejoice - I only use vegetable shortening.
To be honest, I've only used lard in cooking once.
And it was only okay.

This is pure fat.
Obviously, this isn't gonna be good for you :P

I promise, that's my pointer finger poking down at the pan.
Rub your greasy paper towel all over the baking surfaces of the pan.
It should look like greasy af.

Now to the actual assembly/baking!

1) Take your flour, baking powder, and baking soda, and whisk them together in a bowl. Why a whisk? The wiry design kinda lets you aerate the dry ingredients so they aren't too clumpy when you eventually fold them in!

Flour...

Baking powder & baking soda + flour...

Whisked briskly together!

2) Put your pumpkin, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, & cloves in a large (and I mean large, because we'll be mixing everything in here at one time or another!) saucepan over medium heat. Cook this for 6 - 8 minutes or until reduced to 1 1/2 cups. I just did this for the full 8 minutes, just in case. We're trying to get some of the liquid out, here. You'll see why, soon.

Doesn't look so appealing like this, does it...

I used an iodized sea salt, but you can use any non-flavored salt you like.

Delicious spices.
Either my nutmeg or cloves were a bit underground, so I got a crunchy bit today while eating the finished product.
Aside from that, though, this is already smelling good!

Even though it looks nightmarish...

3) Remove your pot from the heat and start adding in your granulated sugar, light brown sugar, oil, & cream cheese until combined. This could take a while, so be patient and don't be afraid to smoosh your cheese if it's too chunky like mine was.

Granulated sugar is heavy enough that, when you start mixing it into the pumpkin, it won't fly everywhere.
Also, it starts to melt into the mix so that it gets looser and more liquid!

I'm pretty sure at this point I've already added the cream cheese?

That oil took forever to incorporate, too!

As you can see, the cheese was... stubborn.
It didn't want to melt & incorporate because it was both too big and too cold!
Leave your cheese out for several hours to get warmer.
Even leave it on top of the stove if you can while it preheats!

4) Let all of this sit for about 5 minutes, then mix everything together one last time until you can't really see the cheese. I didn't do this step, so I guess you can kinda leave some chunks of cheese - it's not going to hurt anything. I like the flavor, so I doubt it's going to matter too much :)

5) Whisk together your eggs & buttermilk (sour milk in my case), then add to the pumpkin mixture!

4 large eggs. One of them basically exploded.
That happens sometimes.
I'm not great at cracking eggs...

Pouring in the sour milk!

*insert obligatory "whisky business" joke here*

Here's our weird egg mixture waiting to be stirred into our pumpkin mixture!

It's a lot lighter in color, now, though I still haven't 100% got the cheese incorporated.

6) Fold your flour mixture into the pumpkin! I did this in small batches so that I could mix it more thoroughly, but America's Test Kitchen tells me some small lumps of flour are okay (but not of the much tastier cream cheese?).

Folding is easy at first, because the pumpkin stuff is pretty loose.
Then the flour starts making it thicker!

See how the drips from the spatula stay on the surface?
That's how I knew to stop folding.

7) Now we add the chocolate chips. Now obviously, you can use any kind of nut or pumpkin seeds or whatever you want to this batter at this stage, but I wanted chocolate, so that's what I did. You do you!

Look at the majestic mound of chocolatey goodness!

And now it's all mixed up!

8) At this point, you'll want to divide the batter as evenly as possible between your two bread tins. When you're satisfied, set them on the middle rack of the oven (or just have your rack in the middle position) and set your timer for 45 - 50 minutes. The suggested pan size is 8.5 x 4.5 inches, but if you're using a 9 x 5 inch pan, you'll be ok. Just start checking five minutes sooner.

These already smelled great and looked good enough to eat.
Look at that marbling from the melting chocolate!

9) When you get to the early end of your baking time, check these puppies for doneness the same way we did with the brownies. If there's chocolate on your toothpick, that's fine. It's going to happen. You just don't want slick pumpkin goo or big mushy crumbs. If they're done, great! Mine were, but a lot of factors go into how fast things cook, including weather, pan style or material, and oven maintenance! Don't beat yourself up if the bread bakes slower. Just keep an eye on it and try to keep it from burning.

If they are done, leave them in the pans on some wire racks for a while!

And yes, it will be tempting to just... upend the whole thing into your mouth.
Don't do it.
At least let it cool enough to turn out, then cut yourself some fat slices.

10) Once you've let the pans cool down enough to handle them with bare hands, it's time to turn your loaves out onto the racks to cool outside the pans! Remember, we've used some pretty heavy ingredients in this - they'll cool really slowly unless you live in a truly frigid climate and/or you keep your house really cold.

Mine required some encouragement from a plastic knife.
Just don't scratch your pans!
Thankfully, no damage was done, and these babies were super cooperative.

Now you feast.

Seriously, though, this bread was fantastic. It's got that deep, rich, orangey color that only pumpkin-based baked goods get, but it doesn't taste over-spiced like a lot of boxed mixes do. I think that the fact that I used chocolate chips probably helped balance out the more caustic overtones of the spices, too. The bread is thick, rich, and... sorry, guys, it's the only word that works here... moist.

It's really good, okay?

Anyway, I hope you liked this week's recipe and that you get to try it for yourself!

No spices this week, I'm about spiced out from the bread :P

Go Enjoy Something!!!

FC