My favorite pumpkin bread

While at Costco this past weekend, they were giving samples of pumpkin bread made from a quick bread mix.  After eating my sample, I felt unsatisfied.  It wasn't nearly as good as the pumpkin bread recipe I found last year.  So I decided to make pumpkin bread as part of the continuance of my pumpkin baking craze.

Growing up, no one in my household was much of a fan of foods made with autumn spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.  It wasn't until a few years ago that I began liking desserts and other foods made with these spices.  But even though I've learned to like these desserts, I still only eat them in small quantities.

Because I wasn't a fan of all the spices, I never really enjoyed pumpkin bread.  I don't know what possessed me to try to make my own pumpkin bread.  I was trying out dessert recipes for Thanksgiving and found this pumpkin recipe that had gotten rave reviews.  The recipe is called Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread and was submitted by Laurie Bennett on allrecipes.com.

I don't know if Maine pumpkin bread is different from other pumpkin breads, but I tried out this recipe and absolutely loved it.  It's my favorite pumpkin bread ever. 

I brought it home to my family for Thanksgiving, and my parents and my brother loved it too.  Three loaves were gone before Thanksgiving dinner.

And it's very easy to make.  You just mix everything into a bowl, pour it into your bread loaf pans, pop them into the oven, and out comes some beautiful pumpkin breads.  This recipe produces loaves of bread that stay soft and moist for days and the bread freezes really well. 

Usually I like to eat my baked goods right out of the oven, while they are still warm and steaming, and the crust is nice and crispy.  However, I've found that with pumpkin, it tastes better the next day.  While there is no longer the crispy crust I love, the flavors of the bread are much more intense after letting the bread settle for a day.

I contemplated taking step by step pictures, but I was in a bit of a rush, so I only have the finished results.

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups white sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. (I usually use the hand mixer here for a little bit because my flour mixture always clumps.  I only mix it until most of the clumps are out.) Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.