A sure sign of autumn in the kitchen

By Susan M. Wicker Guerrero

PITTSFIELD – Besides decorating with pumpkins, they can be used to make delicious fall fare like pumpkin bread.

Many people today use the internet to find recipes at the touch of the fingertips. However, favorite cookbooks, particularly ones with hundreds of recipes from bed and breakfast establishments throughout the United States, are just nice to have around.

Like old friends, one treasures them and turns to them time and time again.

Take, for instance, The American Bed and Breakfast Cookbook by Kitty and Lucian Maynard (Rutledge Hill Press, 1990). This fat old volume has more than 1,800 recipes from 600 American and even Canadian inns.

There are several recipes in the book for pumpkin bread including, one that makes nine loaves. It calls for 14 cups of flour, 16 eggs and 64 ounces of canned pumpkin. That would make quite a few holiday gifts.

The recipe described here, however, is “Aileen’s Pumpkin Bread” from the Bowman House in Hammondsport, N.Y.

The cookbook, printed in 1990, notes that the establishment is a large, 1880s restored home in the heart of wine-making country. (A quick check online failed to find a current website for this bed and breakfast establishment, so it might have seen its day as a business.)

While the recipe calls for placing the batter in #2 tin cans, using small loaf pans that have been sprayed with Pam work just as well. Or, if one wants a big loaf, using a large pan would probably suffice. Just bake it a little longer.

Here’s the recipe for Aileen’s Pumpkin Bread:

Ingredients
1 cup pumpkin
1 cup sugar
¾ cup of oil
2 eggs
1 and ½ cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of salt
½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts work well)

Directions
Grease three #2 tin cans (or small baking pans or one large baking pan). In a large bowl, combine the ingredients. Pour batter into prepared cans (or loaf pans). Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.

This is delicious served with softened cream cheese, as recommended by the inn keeper. However, one can also make an even more pronounced fall taste by adding a couple tablespoons of sugar and a teaspoon or so of pumpkin pie spice to an eight ounce package of cream cheese. Delicious!

Posted by Susan M. Wicker Guerrero on November 8, 2012. Filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry