In my last post, I told you about a not-so-satisfying low-fat pumpkin bread recipe I had just tried. I knew what was missing in that bread was some flavor and some oil. You need a little fat in a sweet quick bread!
All other recipes for pumpkin bread or muffins that I had found called for a good 1/2 cup of oil for a bread, if not more. Most of them called for well over a cup for each loaf. A lot of oil and a lot of sugar. I can halve it, and that’s what I did. And, of course, I added some salt and a few more spices.

Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups roasted Hokaido pumpkin (or any other source of mashed pumpkin)
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup sunflower oil
3 eggs (or two eggs, and two egg whites)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
( I know, I spiced it within an inch of it’s life!)

Preheat oven to 200 C
Line two 9×5 inch loaf pans with parchment paper (for very easy removal of the breads)

In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin, applesauce, eggs, oil and sugar. Add spices and blend well. ( It tastes like pumpkin pie….)

In a smaller bowl, combine flours, soda and salt. Stir into the liquid mixture.

Pour batter evenly into the prepared loaf pans and place in the middle rack of the oven.
Bake on high for the first 45 minutes, then lower the temperature to around 180. If the tops start browning to quickly, cover losely with foil.
Mine took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to bake.

The smell of the bread is irresistible. I could barely wait until it cooled down enough to have a slice! Let’s see how well the breads ripen.

It’s pumpkin season and I love it.
I’ve been wanting to try pumpkin bread, but I also wanted it to be fairly low fat and sugar.
A search for “low fat pumpkin bread” on Google came up with many recipes, one of which called for applesauce and would make two loaves from two cups of pumpkin.
Hokaido pumpkins are very tasty and I didn’t want my bread to have a too overwhelming flavor.
Anyway, I made the bread. It took forever to bake through, and the result was not what I had expected. It’s too heavy, and doesn’t have enough flavor.
Next time I’ll add salt and replace the 2/3 cups of water with 1/2 cup oil. Still low fat, but hopefully more flavorful!

The bread made a yummy bread pudding….

Ingredients:
- 5 slices low-fat pumpkin bread
- 1 1/2 cups milk ( or half milk and half evaporated milk)
- 2 eggs
- 1 Tablespoon light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- pinch of salt
- handfull of raisins
- butter to grease the dish.

Preheat oven to 200c
Grease baking dish and arrange bread slices in it. Sprinkle raisins over the bread.
Whisk together milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt. Pour over the bread and raisins.
Bake in the oven until set, about 25 minutes.

It was delicious! Spicy, juicy, and very satisfying!