I tried to resist all last month, but in October, resistance to pumpkin season is futile.
Giving in means enjoying Thai Pumpkin curry, pumpkin pie baked into an apple shell and my new favorite, pumpkin bread pudding bars.
What gave this pumpkin bread a bread pudding-like texture (minus the bread of course) is doubling the pumpkin puree (1 cup). The result was a soft and comforting texture made even creamier by using mashed banana.
For my first pumpkin bread that I’ve ever made (yes it’s true) I decided to loosely follow a recipe. I based my creation on the pumpkin bread recipe in Danielle Walker’s latest cookbook Against All Grain: Meals Made Simple. And I decided to give away that cookbook or a cookbook of choice to one or two winners. Details are below.
I made a ton of modification to the original recipe. I used mostly fruit (apples, banana, apple butter) to sweeten the bread, so it has only a little added sugar. And I added some chocolate chips because, well, that never hurts.
I also made my own pumpkin butter by processing pumpkin seeds for 5 to 10 minutes in my food processor. It was more chunky than creamy when I was done making it but worked great in the recipe. If you are going to go pumpkin crazy, then go all the way, seeds and all.
If you’ve never tried pumpkin seed butter it’s amazing, and so good for you (lots of immune boosting zinc). You can buy some here.
If you don’t want to use pumpkin seed butter, you can substitute sunflower seed butter or almond butter.
I’m sure my pumpkin bread does not resemble Danielle’s at all. The only similarity is that they both use pumpkin puree and a starchy flour (she used arrowroot and I used tapioca flour, but they can be swapped for each other in most recipes).
Now onto the giveaway of Meals Made Simple or a cookbook of your choice from the same publisher.
To enter, follow me on Instagram, post one of my recipes on Instagram and tag me @paleokitchenlab to enter. I will announce the winner (or two) in my next newsletter.
If you’re not on Instagram, you can e-mail your photo to angelaprivin@yahoo.com. If you win you can choose one of many popular cookbooks like the Zenbelly cookbook, The Paleo Approach Cookbook, the first cookbook by Against All Grain or the New Mediterranean Paleo Cookbook coming out at the end of this month.
Entering this contest is more work most giveaways but I want to give cookbooks to someone who will actually use them.
Maybe no one will enter the contest….but my hope is this will motivate you to try one of my recipe. I want to get you cooking, is that so wrong??
Speaking of cooking/baking here’s some food porn to inspire you and a recipe to try.
Ingredients
2/3 cup of pumpkin seeds ground up in a food processor to release the oils. Grind for 2 minutes, scrape the sides and repeat about 4 times.
2 eggs
1/4 cup of maple syrup
2 sliced bananas
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice (a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and all spice)
optional: 1/4 teaspoon of cardamom
1 Tablespoon of lemon juice
1/2 cup of tapioca flour
3 Tablespoons of apple butter or apple sauce
2 teaspoons of baking powder
3 Tablespoons of butter or ghee or coconut oil or shortening (your choice)
1/3 cup of chocolate chips
1.5 apples, diced into small chunks
optional: 1 Tablespoon of coconut butter (pulverized and sprinkled on top of the batter)
How to
Preheat oven to 360 F.
Grind the pumpkin seeds in the food processor for 8 minutes, stopping every 2 minutes to scrape the side (or just use store bought nut butter). If you want the pumpkin seed butter to be creamier process for longer but this will still work great if the texture is still a bit crumbly/grainy.
Melt your oil of choice (I used butter)
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl with a hand mixer or a spatula/fork
Bake for one hour. I used a 9 by 13 inch pyrex to bake mine. If you are using a smaller container the dough will be thicker and needs to be baked longer.
Let cool, slice into bars and enjoy pumpkin heaven!
- ⅔ cup of pumpkin seeds ground up in a food processor to release the oils. Grind for 2 minutes, scrape the sides and repeat about 4 times.
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup of maple syrup
- 2 sliced bananas
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- ¼ teaspoon of salt
- 1 cup of pumpkin puree
- ½ teaspoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice (a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and all spice)
- optional: ¼ teaspoon of cardamom
- 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice
- ½ cup of tapioca
- 3 Tablespoons of apple butter or apple sauce
- 2 teaspoons of baking powder
- 3 Tablespoons of butter or ghee or coconut oil or shortening (your choice)
- ⅓ cup of chocolate chips
- 1.5 apples, diced into small chunks
- optional: 1 Tablespoon of coconut butter (pulverized and sprinkled on top of the batter)
- Preheat oven to 360 F.
- Grind the pumpkin seeds in the food processor for 8 minutes, stopping every 2 minutes to scrape the side (or just use store bought nut butter). If you want the pumpkin seed butter to be creamier process for longer but this will still work great if the texture is still a bit crumbly/grainy.
- Melt your oil of choice (I used butter)
- Mix all the ingredients in a bowl with a hand mixer or a spatula/fork
- Bake for one hour
- Let cool, slice into bars and enjoy pumpkin heaven!
