martha stewart's pumpkin bread

Monday afternoon, I came home from the library, put the kettle on for tea, started up Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on my computer, and begin pulling down ingredients for Martha Stewart's pumpkin bread. There wasn't really any need for me to be baking pumpkin bread- after a fairly gluttonous weekend, I probably should have been making some sort of vegetable consomme- but it just sounded like the perfect way to spend a gray, windy afternoon.



I made a few changes from Ms. Stewart's recipe, using cloves instead of allspice and adding a bit of chocolate, mostly because I had some leftover from making banana bread earlier this month. All in all, I think it turned out quite well- moist and not too sweet. The chocolate turned out to be a welcome addition, adding another dimension to the loaf. A very nice way to start Halloween week.

Pumpkin Chocolate Bread
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/8 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cups buttermilk
2 oz chopped dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 350F and coat a 1lb loaf pan with butter (or in my case, cake-release). Set aside. In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt together. Set aside.
In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin puree and the two sugars with a hand blender for about 2 minutes. Add in the eggs and oil, mixing for another 2 minutes. Add in half the flour, mixing until just incorporated, then the buttermilk, then the remainder of the flour. Fold in the chopped chocolate and pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, for about 55-60 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes then remove from pan and allow to cool completely.