Pumpkin Bread

I made pumpkin soup the other day and had too much butternut pumpkin so I thought I will just use them to make pumpkin bread. I had a banana bread recipe that used oats as well as flour and I wanted to experiment with swapping the bananas with pumpkin. The recipe needed about 400 grams of pumpkin and I didn’t have quite enough so I bought a small sweet potato to add. The best thing about using oats is that it fills you up and you only need a few slices at a time, in my case, 2 slices are enough.

The recipe makes 2 loaves. I slice them up, wrapped 2 slices with glad wrap and placed everything in a zip lock bag and freeze. I like to take 2 slices to work for breakfast. To crisp them up and warm them, I place them on the flat toaster for a few minutes.

What you’ll need:

• 400g butternut pumpkin– steamed for 20 minutes then mashed
• ¼ cup of sunflower seeds
• 125 g rolled oats
• 495 g wholemeal self-raising flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 135 g brown sugar
• 150g butter, melted
• 375 ml skim milk
• 2 x loaf pan

How it’s done:

1. Steam the pumpkin for 20 minutes
2. Heat oven to 180 degrees or 160 degrees fan forced
3. Grab a big mixing bowl and add all the dry ingredients – oats, flour, baking powder, sunflower seeds and brown sugar. Mix well and get rid of any lumps in the flour or sugar.
4. Add milk and pumpkin and mix well
5. Add melted butter
6. Mix well to ensure that all flour have combined with wet ingredients
7. Line loaf pan with baking paper and pour bread mix
8. Bake in oven for 45 – 50 minutes. Depending on your oven, you may need to adjust the temperature or timing. I tend to place mine at about 140 degrees and cook it for longer to ensure the inside is cooked properly.
9. Bread is ready when skewer inserted comes out clean
10. Once cooled, slice the loaf and freeze as mentioned above or serve

I hope you like this pumpkin bread as much as I do. It’s definitely something handy to have in the freezer. It takes about 30 minutes to defrost 2 slices. I took it out of the freezer as I was leaving for work and by the time I arrived in the office, it was ready to heat up.

Don’t forget that you can use sweet potatoes instead of pumpkin and add other seeds and nuts.

Enjoy.

Check out my Instagram account @heelsandspice for more recipe updates.