Molasses Pumpkin Bread

Every year, the first night it sorta feels like Fall, I get the itch to bake quick breads.  I want to dump a bunch of ingredients in a bowl without caring too much about technique.  I want big, warm, comfy loaves filling my house with scents like pumpkin, nutmeg, and apple.  I want to share the sweet and spicy joy with other people over a cup of tea.

It started out as Libby’s Pumpkin Bread, an incredibly classic recipe that I make every Fall, but then, as usual, I started improvising.  You may be thinking “WHAT?? Improvising while baking? Isn’t that one of the seven deadly sins?”

Let me give you a contrasting image: Think about a grandmother, any quintessential “grandmother,” making biscuits on a Sunday morning.  Did she weigh and measure with precision?  Absolutely not.  She knew at each step how crumbly the butter and how dense the dough should feel between her fingers.  She could eyeball the amount of flour to mound up on that one spot of the counter.  She listened for the satisfying “squoosh” that the biscuit cutter makes as it slides through properly made dough.  

It’s true that messing with a well-tested baking recipe can end in disaster, but if you have some idea of what you’re looking for during the assembly of a dough or batter, and you know what effect certain ingredients will have on the final product, making a small change or two won’t hurt anything.  It won’t be the same exact flavor the original recipe intended, and it may not be reproducible, but it’ll still taste good (maybe better).  Without someone experimenting, how would we get new recipes?

And if it is a disaster, so what?  Baking ingredients are cheap and you still got to spend a little time using your hands to create something.  Unless it’s totally inedible, call it something creative and serve it anyway.

So here’s what I did:

While the oven preheated to 350F, I sprayed down two loaf pans with cooking spray and sprinkled flour as evenly as I could to create a dust over the spray.  Then I made a cup of tea and turned on some relaxing music.

Into a very large bowl went 2 cups white flour, 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (you could use all white but I like the texture of the wheat), a large pinch baking powder, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and about 2 tablespoons various pie spices to taste (mostly cinnamon balanced with smaller amounts of nutmeg, allspice, ginger, clove). And yes, I really mean taste the batter before adding the eggs.  I honestly did not measure properly and this turned out fantastic, so relax a little next time you bake.

Then I dumped in 1 1/2 cups white sugar and 1 cup brown sugar.  Realizing that I ran out of brown sugar (it’s supposed to be 1 1/2 cups), I decided to swap in some molasses that has been gathering dust in my pantry.  The bread would be moist-er and slightly less sweet, but when has that been a bad thing?

On top of all that went a can of plain pumpkin purée and 1 cup of neutral-flavored oil along with the 1/2 cup of molasses– you can measure all that out in a large glass measuring cup.  I stirred until about half-blended and tasted for seasoning before adding 4 eggs, whisked to a homogenous color in that same glass measuring cup.  Don’t do extra dishes if you don’t have to. 

Last I stirred until there were no more floury patches.  No over-mixing here- that’s how gluten develops and turns your soft-and-cozy loaf into a brick.

I dumped about half the batter in each loaf pan and baked about an hour, until a toothpick pricked through the center came out clean.  Fortunately, they slid right out of the loaf pans after a brief cooling time.

Technically you’re supposed to let the bread cool before slicing.  I didn’t.

Fall is here, and I’m not waiting another minute.