AMC's Pumpkin Cranberry Throw-Down Loaf!
Alicia made this bread on the hard in Oriental, NC because the night had a chill, and baking warms the boat up nicely.
The rad
thing
about quickbreads is that once you've got your basic
ingredients down in the right proportion (namely the flour,
leaveners and salt), the wet ingredients can be whatever you feel like.
Mashed or pureed fruits, most roasted squashes, sweet potatoes
and carrots will all work nicely. Add an egg for extra moisture
and lightness, or not. Stir in some fancies like nuts, dried
fruits or coconut, or not. Use your fat of choice: butter,
coconut oil, walnut oil, whatever. Determining the combination
of wet ingredients in a quickbread can be more like cooking than
baking: combine a bunch of things that you think will taste good
together, and chances are they will.
In the spirit of "waste not, want not", Alicia had roasted our
Halloween jack-o-lantern a week earlier, and we'd bought one of those
bags of cranberries that show up in the produce section every year
around this time. She made up this pumpkin bread batter and threw
in some cranberries - because, why not? - and it turned into a Flavor
Fiesta.
Wet Ingredients:
1/2 cup sucanat or brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups roasted pumpkin, pureed (or two cups plain canned pumpkin)
juice from two oranges
1/2 tsp salt
Dry Ingredients:
2 cups of your favorite baking flour, whole wheat if you're feeling virtuous
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
one big pinch of nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon, more to taste
1/2 tsp allspice, more to taste
Fanciness:
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted if you have the inclination
3/4 cup of cranberries
Preheat your oven to 350.
Grease up a loaf or muffin pan.
Combine the wet ingredients well in a bowl with a mixer or food
processor. Combine the dry ingredients well in a bigger bowl.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a fork just until
combined. Add a bit more orange juice or some water, a tablespoon
at a time, if your batter isn't sticking together. Fold in the
fancies, and spoon the batter into your prepared pan.
Bake until done - when the loaf or muffins spring back from your touch
and has pulled slightly away from the sides. This is about an
hour for a loaf, and around 18 minutes for muffins.
Enjoy! This one's especially good spread with cream cheese.