Re-Entry Week Pumpkin Bread

My "happy place" over the last six months when I needed a little ummm retreat from Bolivia was to page through recipe sites and bookmark anything that looked especially yummy and fun to make for when I came home (...okay, I realize that sounds lame, but I don't have a Facebook... I get my kicks where I can). Many an afternoon brinking on absolute culture-shock/homesickness meltdown was held together by the web-surfing promise of ingredient shopping, two-bowl mixing, and preparing and serving a delicious new dinner or dessert.

(...Yeah, I definitely feel lame writing that. But it is true!)

I finally got my hands on some flour and my kitchen yesterday and made a fun and Christmasy-scented (!!) pumpkin bread:

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree (ooh, ooh side note, I used organic pumpkin!! Which... is only because I happened to be shopping at Trader Joe's with Becky that morning and pumpkin was on sale. And nothing else I used was organic. But... it makes me feel cool anyway.)
  
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup applesauce
  
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
  
• 1 and 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
  
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans. (Mine actually came out to two full size loaf pans and one small one, and probably could have all fit in the two.)
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water, vanilla and sugar until well blended.
   
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.
4. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
5. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

It's based off of this recipe, but mine has a few changes... I added the vanilla and doubled the spices, and the original recipe called for all white sugar but I like using at least partially brown. I also only used the applesauce because we didn't have enough oil for the called-for cup, but I actually really liked it. I think next time I would just use all applesauce and cut the oil- it makes it slightly more cakey (which it could afford), it's a little healthier, and the flavor was great.

Spicewise, you could pretty much do whatever you want. With what I listed, it comes out VERY clove-y. I think next time I might halve that and replace it with more cinnamon (yum!). And I couldn't super taste the vanilla so I might experiment with a bit more of that.

I wished the pumpkin flavor was a little stronger but I'm not sure how to do that without changing the texture of the bread. I've heard there's a pumpkin spice you can buy?

OH YEAH AND: I definitely think it would be great with chewable somethings. Chocolate chips or personally I'm thinkin' CRANBERRIES!!

Overall: very sweet, very moist, and even if you're not hungry slightly addictive. And best of all fun to make!! Which I did while listening to Christmas music on my laptop and calling out questions every five minutes to my poor mother who was trying to read in the living room. I love Christmas and I love being home.