Personally I have never been a fan of pumpkin flavored anything, but since this the most prevalent food of this season, I figured I would give it another try. So I went to the store and bought a small pie pumpkin. A small one that weighed like two pounds or so.

I then chopped the pumpkin in half and gave a half to each of the kids for them to scrape out the seeds and the strings, which I had to help them with. I then baked each half for about an hour at 350 degrees. Then, when cool, the kids got their half back to scrape out the flesh of the pumpkin from within the shell.

The recipe we used for pumpkin bread is as follows:

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter softened
• 3 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 cups of pumpkin puree, packed

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. 
2. Add the eggs and mix well. 
3. Combine dry ingredients and stir into creamed mixture just until moistened. 
4. Stir in prepared pumpkin. 
5. Pour into two greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pans. 
6. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour or until bread tests done.

Now that I have baked this bread, I must say that my palette has truly changed. I actually enjoyed the pumpkin and am planning on buying a larger pumpkin this week to make more of this fantastic bread. I must tell you that the two pound pumpkin only yielded me about 3 cups of usable pumpkin puree, so if you are planning on making more than a couple of loafs you will want either more pumpkins or a larger one.

Happy Cooking and Blessed Be!