Tis the Season for Giving Goodies

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is baking pumpkin bread for the neighbors. I think they like it; no one’s ever said anything to the contrary, and they keep taking it, so I guess it goes over all right. Because Christmas wouldn’t feel the same if I didn’t bake this bread every year, I spent the perfect afternoon yesterday baking up eight loaves while Enya’s Christmas album spun on the CD changer, the kids played out in the cold, and my husband hung ornaments on the tree.

This weekend marks the start of Christmas vacation for a lot of folks—school’s out, kids are home from college, and it’s snowing all over the country. Of course here in Florida it’s been a long time since we’ve seen snow, but our own brand of Christmas weather includes temperatures in the 40s and brisk wind. Don’t you wish you were here? If you were, we could sit over a cup of coffee and this bread spread with whipped cream cheese.

This moist bread is almost like cake, and you may find it a bit sweet, so feel free to pull back a little on the sugar. With the chopped apple, there’s plenty of tartness to balance out the sweet, though. Try it once and then for the next batch adjust to your liking. The original recipe called for a streusel topping, but I found that unless the bread was eaten right away, the topping softened right up, rendering it superfluous. Because this bread is even better when eaten the next day, I leave the streusel out.

I have to confess I love this bread year-round and have been known to eat almost an entire loaf myself, pretending to be surprised with everyone else in the family when they said, “Is all the pumpkin bread gone already?” I like to think I’ve perfected my response, uttered with just the right puzzled look on my face: “Is it? Wow, we went through that pretty fast.”

Unfortunately for me, though, this latest batch of eight loaves has been safely snuggled into Christmas-themed plastic wrap. The kids and I have put on our jackets and are heading out to do a little Christmas delivery. Fortunately for me, we have only seven neighbors.

Pumpkin Apple Bread
makes 2 loaves
adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook

3 cups all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 15-oz can pumpkin
¾ cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 large tart apples,

Preheat your oven to 350˚. Grease two 9- by 5-inch loaf pans with a little shortening. Sift the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice into a medium bowl. Put the pumpkin, oil and sugar into a large bowl and whisk until combined. Pour in the eggs, a little at a time, and whisk until all are incorporated. Add the flour mixture and, yes, whisk some more.

Peel and core your apples and cut them into large pieces which you need to put into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until all are finely chopped. You’re looking for chunky applesauce consistency, more chunky but still sauce. Fold this not-quite-puree into the rest of the batter. Divide the batter between the pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean, about 50 minutes to an hour.

Cool the loaves in the pans on wire racks for half an hour, then remove them from the pans and cool completely, about an hour more. When they are completely at room temperature, wrap them in plastic wrap and then foil and store overnight. Eat the loaf the next day, warmed in the toaster oven and spread with whipped cream cheese, or scarf it down plain while everyone else is watching “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

And a Merry Christmas to you.