It’s almost fall, so let the pumpkin spice begin…
Autumn is my favorite season of all with fresh pumpkins and apples abundant. The days are getting shorter, the nights a bit cooler, snuggle up by the fire with a hot apple cider.
Here’s one of my favorite easy fall recipes. Enjoy!
Pumpkin Bread with Pepitas
Ingredients
- 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- ⅔ cup water
- 3 cups white sugar
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F conventional oven or 325F convection oven. Grease and flour two 9×5 inch loaf pans.
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. Pour into the prepared pans, lined with parchment paper to prevent sticking. Sprinkle fresh pepita seeds on top of each loaf.
Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Variation: Add a cup of semi sweet chocolate chips and sprinkle some on the top of each loaf along with the pepita seeds.
Pastry chef tricks of the trade
Homemade Madagascar Vanilla Extract
With vanilla extract being so expensive nowadays, I like to make my own, it’s fun and easy to do. Start off with a good quality vodka I’m using a 350 mL bottle of French Balinoff vodka and 10 Madagascar vanilla beans split. Place the beans in the bottle and shake everyday.
After six months, you can start using your homemade extract, just replenish the vodka as you use it.
For an even more intense double extract, wait a full year or add more beans. I buy my beans on Amazon.com for about $1 per bean.
Journey through the professional career of a Pastry Chef 