perfect pumpkin bread

The Bouldering Competition I competed in was the day before the Harvest Celebration at Little Eorthe, so I was pretty focused on preparing to compete and hadn't planned ahead something to bring to the potluck dinner the next afternoon.  Thankfully I had all the ingredients for pumpkin bread and a new recipe to test out from one of my grandma's old church cookbooks.  I was hoping it turned out great because I didn't have time to make a back up, but it ended up perfectly!  Oftentimes I find that breads like pumpkin bread, banana bread, etc end up with a mushy, not-as-cooked center, but this one cooked through completely perfectly and was light and fluffy but still rich and dense.  If you wanted to make this more dessert-y you could add chocolate chips, or even raisins and nuts if you like!  I opted for a plain ol' version with no mix-ins.  I had a slice for breakfast every day this week, perfect for the amazing fall mornings we've been having!

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups flour

3 cups sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

2 cups pumpkin

1 cup oil or butter

4 eggs

2/3 cups water

1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.  Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a large bowl.  In another bowl, mix pumpkin, eggs, oil/butter, eggs, water and vanilla.

2. Pour wet ingredients into the large bowl with the dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

3. Pour into two greased + floured loaf pans (or I prefer mine lined with parchment paper instead), and bake for 1 hr, or until done.  Mine needed to be baked a bit longer than 1 hr.  Just bake until, when you poke a toothpick in, it comes out dry.