Whole Grain Pumpkin Bread

Finally! After several batches, some of which were not good, I perfected my whole grain pumpkin bread! Yeah!

A couple of days ago, I was gathering firewood in the yard, and I suddenly thought, "This whole wheat or whole grain pumpkin bread is not nearly as good as my old all white flour and loads of sugar recipe. But it is much healthier and still tastes good." Eventually I'll forget what that old bad-for-me bread tasted like and come to love my new healthier one just as much.

Plus, this pumpkin bread can't be all bad - my two year old can't get enough.

Pumpkin Bread is very versatile and forgiving, so you can tweak it a good bit to your own tastes.

This recipe is for 2 loaves of Pumpkin Bread. Since it takes an entire large can of pumpkin puree, if you want 1 loaf, freeze or refrigerate half a can of pumpkin. Just remember to bring it back to room temp before making another loaf. (That is really important.)

Whole Grain or Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread
Yield 2 loaves.

Wet Stuff:
29 oz can pumpkin puree (I use the large can of Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin)
1 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
4 eggs (room temperature)

I keep my flour in recycled containers in the freezer. They keep longer and line up nicely on the side shelf

Flour (if you keep it in the freezer, bring it back to room temp before using):
Flour Option #1 - all Whole Wheat
2 2/3 cups Whole Wheat Flour

Flour Option #2 - mixed grains (found these in the bulk section at Whole Foods)
1 1/3 cup Whole Wheat
2/3 cup Whole Grain Spelt Flour
2/3 cups Oat Flour

You can see the strata of my dry ingredients for my 1/2 test batch.

Other Dry Ingredients:
1/4 cup almond meal or ground almonds (optional, and also found in bulk bins at WF's)
1 TBSP Vital Gluten (WF bulk bins too)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground allspice
optional: 1/4 tsp ground cloves, if you like cloves, which I don't!

Mix flour and other dry ingredients. This is how I mix mine. Pour them all in a plastic container that has about twice as much capacity as the total ingredients. Pop on lid and shake. It's pretty mixed up afterwards.

Preheat oven to 340 degrees F. Grease two 9x5 loaf pans.

In a large mixing bowl, add pumpkin, oil, sugar and eggs. Mix on low speed until blended, about 30 seconds. It'll look like this:




Next, add the mixed up dry ingredients a little at a time until blended (on low speed). Then mix with hand mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes.

Divide the batter up between the two pans. Each should be about this full:

Place in preheated oven on top middle shelf. On the bottom shelf, place a pan filled 1" with very hot water. The water keeps the oven steamy, which prevents the bread from getting too dry.

Bake in preheated oven for 1hr to 1 hr 15 min until the center is done. The top of loaf should spring back when lightly pressed.

Some changes:
Not sweet enough: increase the sugar to 2 cups.
Too gritty: leave out the almonds. Plus make sure that all of your ingredients are room temp.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we have. 5 loaves of pumpkin bread in 5 days hasn't been such a hardship!