Pumpkin Bread

By elizabethkristine

This recipe fills my Bosch to the brim- you will need to halve the recipe if you are making it in a smaller bowl.

"The only true and living pumpkin bread" . . . My dear mother made batch after batch after batch of this every year at Christmastime for our teachers, my dad's co-workers, and to bring to neighbors when we would go caroling. Be it known that it is blasphemous to add chocolate chips to this recipe, however since all of the in-laws seem to find it necessary to do so (my husband included), I have included that option.
From Mama Fales:
David and I received our first loaf of pumpkin bread from our neighbors who lived next door to us when we moved to our house in Canyon Country, California
(1 hour north of Los Angeles). They brought it over to us as a welcome gift when we moved there in July of 1974.

In December of that year I baked it and
gave it as Christmas gifts to our Visiting Teaching and Home Teaching families.




David also took it to work and gave it to his business associates at the Olga Company in Van Nuys, Ca. This is how our tradition began.

I at first felt a little apologetic to give such a simple, humble gift until one older single lady Dad worked with told me that she looked forward to my pumpkin bread each year. She said that she would always save it and have it with her Christmas dinner. This is how I learned
that sometimes the simple, homemade things mean the most to others.

When the children got old enough, they would take pumpkin bread to their teachers at school and church. However the tradition almost stopped one year when I was in bed with a pending miscarriage in 1994. Alison insisted that she could bake and wrap the pumpkin bread for the kids to take to school and she did! I told her that what I missed most about making the pumpkin bread was licking the bowl. So she would bring the bowl up to my bedroom to lick after each batch!

We also had the tradition to go caroling
to friends and neighbors at Christmas time and leave a loaf of pumpkin bread. The youngest child in the family would have the honor of carrying the loaf of pumpkin bread. The funniest story was when Matthew was the youngest child and he was carrying the pumpkin bread. We went to Mrs. Kashigian’s house and after he gave her the bread, she brought out a small basket of candy and offered him some. He took the whole basket and started to walk away. Everyone started laughing and we tried to give it back, but she thought it was so cute, she insisted that he keep it!

Ingredients

• Optional:
• 6 C. sugar
• 8 eggs
• 2 C. salad oil
• 4 C. pumpkin
• (1 large or 2 small cans)
• 7 C. flour
• 4 t. baking soda
• 2 t. baking powder
• 4 t. salt
• 1 t. cloves
• 2 t. nutmeg
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 2 . t. allspice
• 1 1/3 C. water
• Add 2 C. each raisins, walnuts, or chocolate chips.

Preparation

Step 1

Combine sugar, oil, eggs.
Beat till light and fluffy--add pumpkin
Sift or stir dry ingredients together;
add to first mixture; add water.
Bake at 350 d. for 1 hour
This double recipe makes 6 large
loaves or 12 mini loaves.