Homemade Pumpkin Bread

Two years ago, I roasted my own pumpkins.  It was at that point that I realized that we needed more recipes for pumpkin.  Insert pumpkin bread.  I had always heard people talk about how awesome pumpkin bread was and a certain un-named major coffee shop has a pumpkin cream cheese bread that is to die for.  I wanted a bread like that in my repertoire. 

I searched online and found a recipe for pumpkin bread from the website where I first got the information about roasting the pumpkins.  I tried it that weekend and it was amazing!  Since then I have made this recipe about 20 different times and have changed very little.  I will admit that we now add chopped pecans and white chocolate chips this year and it makes it really special.  I recently took this to a potluck at my job and it was met with rave reviews. 

Homemade pumpkin bread

Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 65-70 mins

3.5 cups all purpose flour - I have used bread flour and it seems to work exactly the same
3 cups white sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg - I grate my own for each use so sometimes I use more, sometimes less.  I have found that nutmeg is a taste that not everyone loves...
1.5 tsp salt
.5 tsp allspice
2 cups roasted pureed pumpkin
.5 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
4 whole eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl.  I never use a mixer for this because you want to stir as little as possible and I get better control over the amount that is mixed with a whisk than the stand mixer.  After dry ingredients are mixed together, mix in wet ingredients until fully combined.  Pour into loaf pans.  This bread will rise a bit so I normally don't fill my loaf pans anymore than 3/4ths of the way full.  It normally takes 3 medium sized loaf pans - I use the aluminum ones.  Bake 65 - 70 mins.  I normally cool mine 10 minutes in the pans and then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. 

Enjoy!