North Texas Pumpkin Bread

I made pumpkin bread from scratch for the first time this afternoon. I was planning to use this recipe straight out, but due to a white flour and ground cloves shortage in my otherwise well-stocked pantry, I had to make a few changes. And since I was making some substitutions, I decided to read through some of the recipe reviews from the website and make a few more changes, too.

So here's the recipe I ended up using. I must say it turned out very yummy, but next time I'm going to try it more like the original recipe to see how different it is from my North Texas version.

North Texas Pumpkin Bread

(adapted from Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread)

INGREDIENTS

• Bowl One
  • One 15-ounce can pumpkin
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup canola oil
  • 1/2 cup sweetened applesauce
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
• Bowl Two
  • 2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease and flour your loaf pans (or muffins tins). I ended up using 3 slightly different-sized pans, but they were about 7 inches long each.
3. Mix all the ingredients for bowl one until well blended.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together all the ingredients for bowl two.
5. Add the dry mixture from bowl two to the wet ingredients in bowl one. Stir together until only just blended.
6. Pour into the prepared pans.
7. Bake for about 40 minutes (less time if using muffin tins) or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

And if anyone has a good method they use for greasing and flouring baking pans, please share it! I don't think my way was very good, and I'm sure there's a much better way.