Cooking Up Some Love

A few things first...

I never follow a recipe as it is written. (That's just no fun.)
I never measure anything out exactly. (Also no fun.)

but most importantly

I NEVER FEEL BAD ABOUT WHAT I EAT.

That being said I always try to make what I like healthy... and still taste as good as the original thing. That, of course, is not always possible, but I come pretty darn close sometimes.

Friday, November 16

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Beer Bread!


It's my favorite time of the year. All those things that you only really get once a year start rolling around the supermarket again! This recipe incorporates two of my favorite holiday items: pumpkin and sweetbread!!! Now let it be noted that the love of pumpkin was something I happened up (although I'm not really sure how), not something instilled in me by family tradition. The sweetbread, on the other hand, was a staple so integral to our house during the holidays, I'm pretty sure grandma cooked it nearly every other day because there was always someone else to give it to as a show of merriment for the season and love. The one thing my grandmother taught me growing up is to appreciate everyone. EVERYONE. The bank tellers, the plumbers, the AC repairmen, etc. Even to this day, if we call about the AC in grandma's old house in the middle of a heat wave in the summer, they get to us way sooner than is reasonable.

So here follows some way yummy than I would have imagined pumpkin beer bread adapted from The Realistic Nutritionist where my additions/substitutions/subtractions are all noted under each ingredient.


MIXING!
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour & 2 cups all purpose flour
    • I used 3 cups whole wheat flour.
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
    • I added 1 teaspoon of baking soda in addition to the tablespoon of baking powder because of the honey I add later on.
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 – 4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (just do it all. You know you want to.)
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
    • I did use brown sugar here. It's fairly hard to replace both brown sugar and white sugar at the same time without completely bombing the consistency since both subs I use are wet, not dry.
  • 2 tablespoons regular sugar
    • Here, I substituted 1 tablespoon of honey for the white sugar.
  • 1 cup of canned pumpkin
    • YUM FACTOR!!! :D
  • 12 ounces beer ([she] used Oktoberfest)
    • I used Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale. (If you like pumpkin and haven't tried this, you totally should!)

  • 2 tablespoons of melted margarine (you can also use butter)
    • I opted out of this step.
  • Cooking spray
My additions:
  • some undisclosed amount of cinnamon
  • a very small dash of allspice
  • 3/4 cup chopped pecans
  • about 1 cup of pumpkin seeds



COOK IT!
  1. Preheat oven to 375` F.
  2. Spray a (fairly large) loaf pan with cooking spray and set aside.
  3. Mix flours, baking powder, sugars, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, allspice, and salt.
  4. Add in pumpkin, beer, and honey, mixing until fully combined.
  5. Stir in pecan chips.
  6. Pour mixture into the prepared loaf pan (more like plop). 
  7. Cover top with pumpkin seeds and press them down so they will stick to the bread after baking.
  8. Bake for 50-60 minutes until the center comes out clean when poked with a toothpick.
The yumminess that is pumpkin beer bread.

As you can see, the bread is literally half gone before I even thought to take a picture of it. And it rose! A lot! Yayy!! It's not really sweet which is good around the holidays, but it's just sweet enough to be a dessert-ish type thing. I opted out of the butter because I don't like to put butter on my sweetbreads. The pumpkin seeds made it more savory so if you're really looking for a sweetbread, I would add a bit more sweetness and skip the pumpkin seeds. The ale is light and more of an undertone unlike the last one, leaving it kinda neutral so you don't get a true beer bread flavor, but it's there very very subtly.

Now off to eat the rest. hehe.

1 comment:

  1. Are you making this for your mother when she comes to visit?

    ReplyDelete