Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 C vegetable oil
• ½ C applesauce
• 2/3 cup water
• 2 cups white sugar
• 
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 Cups whole wheat flour
• 
2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• Optional: add 1/2 cup or so of mini chocolate chips and then sprinkle some on top to dress them up a bit!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans. (Or for me,it
worked perfectly for 2 of my 9x5 loaf pans).
In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, applesauce, water and sugar until well blended.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.
Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Optional: Gently stir in chocolate
chips and sprinkle some on top once in pans, if desired. Pour into the prepared pans.
Bake for about 50 minutes (7x3 pans) or 50-60 mins (9x5 pans) in the preheated oven. Loaves are done
when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

Notes:

I thought the flavor was even better the second day. I think this recipe is kind of a nice compromise between healthy ingredients and taste! I reduced the sugar, replaced some of the oil with applesauce, and replaced over half of the flour with whole wheat flour. Nothing like warm pumpkin bread for breakfast on a fall morning!

(adapted from the recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Downeast-Maine-Pumpkin-Bread/Detail.aspx?prop24=etaf)