Vegan Pumpkin Bread

My friend Amber called me the other day to check in after I left a woe-is-me hunter's widow boredom message.

"So what are you doing?" she asked.

"Making pumpkin puree."

"...."

"I know what you're thinking..."

"Didn't you just blog about what a pain in the ass it is to cook pumpkin?"

"Yes, it's hardly worth it, but I'm giving it a go again..."

Yes, I spent a couple hours yesterday chopping, cooking, peeling, and pureeing one of our jack-o-lanterns, so I can conclude with certainly that there are a few reasons why it is a pain in the keester to cook up pumpkin:

1) Pumpkins are unwieldy to clean and cut up

2) Boiling/steaming takes a large pot and a bit of patience - and roasting takes even longer

3) The boiled/steamed pumpkin retains a lot of water, so it's more liquidy than the canned stuff and thus not great for pumpkin pie

4) The puree from the home food processor will never be as creamy and smooth as the canned stuff.

So knowing all this, why did I bother with it this year? It was a perfect storm of media:

1) My weekly Cook for Good newsletter reminded me that pumpkins are food and food is a terrible thing to waste. Amen.

2) Consumer Reports came out with a report that practically everything in a tin can (such as canned pumpkin) leaches BPA into your food, a chemical known to cause cancer, birth abnormalities, etc. Don't you sometimes feel you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't? For the record, if you're worried about BPA in your food, here's what Consumer Reports recommends:

- Choose fresh food whenever possible. (Check!)

- Consider alternatives to canned food, beverages, juices, and infant formula (Check! - and note they are referring to canned liquid formula here).

- Use glass containers when heating food in microwave ovens. (Check!)

3) Food Inc. came out on DVD and arrived in my mailbox (thank you, Netflix) and after viewing it, all I could think was, 'What is wrong with us? Why must our food system be such a disaster?' Yet another reason to eat the food out of my backyard whenever I can.

So I had a pumpkin's worth of puree. I wanted to make something baked, but most pumpkin bar or pumpkin bread recipes just use 2/3 cup or 1 cup of pumpkin, max. Nope, I needed a really pumpkin-y recipe.

Joy the Baker to the rescue. Somehow she knew I had a ton of pumpkin BUT didn't have any eggs in my fridge. She swooped in like a little baking angel and posted this lovely recipe and just made my day. And no eggs meant that I had no excuse not to lick the spatula clean.

Now the question is what to do with the nine other pumpkins sitting around my house right now.

Vegan Pumpkin Bread

Since my puree was a little more liquidy than canned puree, I left out the 1/3 cup of water called for in the original recipe. I made one loaf with 1/2 cup walnuts, another loaf with (non-vegan) 1/2 cup chocolate chips, and both were delish.

3 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (can substitute up to 1/2 the ap flour with whole wheat flour)
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cloves

2 cups pumpkin puree or 1 - 15 oz can pumpkin (if using canned puree, add 1/3 cup of water to the batter)
1 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 cup chopped walnuts OR 1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place a rack in the center of the oven. Grease and flour two loaf pans (mine are 8×4x2) and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flours, sugars, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.

In a medium bowl, carefully whisk together pumpkin puree, oil, maple syrup and water.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and use a spatula to fold all of the ingredients together. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl well, finding any stray flour bits to mix in. Fold in the chopped walnuts or chocolate chips.

Divide the dough between the two greased pans. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven. Let rest in the pans for 20 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack.