Tomorrow morning there is a Moms4Moms meeting and it’s my table’s turn to bring cold food. I make this a lot, but the last time I made it, one of the loaves didn’t cook through as quickly as the other. For some reason, both loaves took way longer to bake than the recommended time. Hopefully this time around, I wont run into problems. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my food, so I threw away the loaf that didn’t quite get there…I was so bummed about it. I will be sure to keep an eye on my oven thermometer and give both loaf pans plenty of space in the oven. Also, the last time I made it I didn’t have any ground cloves! I have been shopping around for that spice for weeks now. At Publix, they cost anywhere from 4.99 to 7.99! I couldn’t find ground cloves at Target, and the specialty store I went to sold theirs for over 8 dollars – why are they so expensive? Well, today I had to suck it up and purchase the tiny container you can see in the ingredients picture. Next time I am in the need for several different spices, I’m going to shop online. I looked around at different sites, and every thing was much cheaper.

I love the way the house smelled when these were baking. Weirdness happened again with this recipe. One loaf took a good 10 minutes longer to finish baking than the other one. I made sure that it cooked through as I poked it with a toothpick in several places. I’ll know for sure once I cut into these later on tonight. The kids love this bread and I do too, but the last time I made it they didn’t get any. I may just take one and a half of the loaves to the meeting tomorrow. I am also bringing red grapes so I’m not being stingy with the goods! Thanks for reading, enjoy!

Pumpkin Bread Ingredients – adapted from Allrecipes.com

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil – you can substitute all or half the oil with unsweetened apple sauce
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups white sugar – I always use half white/half light brown sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground nutmeg – fresh is best
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Directions –

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7×3 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 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.