3 c Sugar, granulated
3 1/2 c Flour, all-purpose
1/2 t Salt
2 t Baking soda
1 t Cinnamon
1 t Nutmeg
4 lg Eggs
1 c Vegetable oil
2 c Pumpkin (cooked)
2/3 c Water
1 1/2 c Walnuts, chopped
Cream cheese (optional;
-for serving)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter your containers well.
Sift the dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Make a well in the
center of the dry ingredients, and add the eggs, oil, pumpkin and water.
Beat thoroughly. It's easier to get all the lumps out if you use an
electric mixer. Stir in the walnuts with a wooden spoon.
Pour the batter into the containers, filling each only half to two-thirds
full. Bake for 60-90 minutes, depending on the sizes of your containers.
If you're using a very small container, start checking much sooner. The
bread is done when a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.
Cool about ten minutes, then loosen the edges of the bread with a knife,
and turn out of the pans to cool the rest of the way on a rack. For baking
containers, you can use a loaf pan, metal cans, or whatever. I usually use
1-pound coffee cans, and it takes three of them. If you want tiny loaves,
you could probably use soup cans.
NOTES:
* A dessert bread made from pumpkins -- Every year in Half Moon Bay,
California there is a Pumpkin Festival, at which prizes are given for the
largest pumpkin in the world. Never mind that for the last two years the
winner has been in Nova Scotia: the citizens of Half Moon Bay take
pumpkins very seriously.
At Christmas time in Half Moon Bay, people give each other little tins of
this bread as presents. I also take it backpacking, because it's pretty
resistant to being squashed (and tastes fine even when it is). Yield: 3
1-pound loaves.
* I think the nuts are important in this recipe. Unless you absolutely
hate them, leave them in.
* It's not necessary, but you can serve some good cream cheese with it to
spread on the slices if you like.
: Difficulty: easy to moderate.
: Time: 15 minutes preparation, 90 minutes cooking.
: Precision: measure the ingredients.
