Pumpkin bread - a visit to Tilo's land of spices

Autumn, harvest, Halloween - what do they all have in common? For me for the last many years I have been living in North America, all these words scream pumpkin. Large, round, bright colored pumpkins come into the market as soon as the temperature goes South. Coming from India where pumpkins were normal sized (= quite small compared to the ones here), these seemed to be on a hormone injected growth spurt. My parents with their love for gardening, always had a home garden with loads of flowering plants and vegetables whether the patch was big or small. One of the houses we had rented had a huge yard and the soil was very fertile. We had many plants that came up on their own such as the 'not so good' pomegranate, 'very delicious' heralekayi(a citrus fruit used in pickles), 'can't eat any more, we are so bored' papaya trees and so on :-). Vegetable patch almost always had green beans, okra, brinjal, greens and pumpkins. While there were experimental ground nuts (peanuts), the green chana (soppina kadle kayi in Kannada) fared well a couple of times. Once a rogue white pumpkin or winter melon or ash gourd as it is called in India, spread all around in the yard and yielded humongous gourds. These were very happily consumed in many a sandige and majjige huli and kasha halwa preparations :-). Well, I digress, that is not the pumpkin I am going to talk about today.

It is that time of the month to bake something with my baking partners. Having missed last month's challenge, I was looking forward to this one as an excuse to bake but was definitely not prepared for the heady spicy aroma that engulfed us as the bread baked in the oven. This being October, Swathi very aptly gave us a pumpkin recipe infused heavily with spices and what a wonderfully flavored bread it was. Now, if you are wondering about the title of this post and thinking who Tilo is, here is a little explanation to set records straight. A few years back I read a book called 'Mistress of Spice' (by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni). I believe it was made into a movie with Aishwarya Rai. The protagonist of the book is Tilo, she runs a spice store in the bay area and has magical healing powers but is severely restrained in her own personal happiness. The book is at once magical and sad but what I wondered most during that reading was coming across that exotic spice store in San Franscisco whenever I went there and getting some magical spices from Tilo :-). When I made the pumpkin bread the other day, I was reminded of this book and thought the house smelled like Tilo's store from the book, at once mysterious and enticing with a combinational aroma.

Back to the baking partners' challenge, as always we were given different options to try and I chose the vegan bread recipe. As Navaratri was approaching and I had other work related things going on, I wanted to make this bread at the first opportunity and be ready with the pictures so I used the ingredients from my pantry. The only change I did was to use honey instead of maple syrup since I was out of it which makes this bread non-vegan but you can always replace honey with maple syrup if you like. There is no yeast in this bread but works with baking powder and baking soda as leavening agents. The bread was very moist and soft, almost tea cake texture. It had enough sugar to satisfy our sweet cravings and I didn't add any glaze on top. The best part was making the pumpkin puree at home, I added whole spices while cooking the pumpkin and it brought out an intoxicatingly spicy aroma and definitely made the house smell like Tilo's house of spices :-)

What do you need to make pumpkin bread?
Makes 1 loaf
1 cup All purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup pumpkin puree (see below to make your own delicious smelling puree)
1 cup brown sugar
1 Tsp baking soda
1/2 Tsp baking powder
1/2 Tsp salt
1 inch piece ginger (or 1/4 Tsp dry ginger powder
1/2 nutmeg (or 1/2 Tsp nutmeg powder)
2 - 1 inch piece cinnamon (or 1/2 Tsp cinnamon powder)
4-6 cloves (or 1/4 Tsp powdered cloves)
1/2 cup oil (I used canola oil)
2 Tblsp honey (original recipe has 3 Tblsp maple syrup)
3 Tblsp water
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (original recipe calls for 1/2cup, we like nutty breads)

How do you make pumpkin bread?
Making pumpkin puree

• Peel and chop pumpkin into chunks, take about 2 cups of chopped pieces.
• Take a sauce pan, add the pumpkin pieces, 1/4 cup water and the whole spices (slightly crushed nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger juliennes and cloves), bring it to boil.
• If you are using spice powders, reserve them for use later on and just boil the pumpkin pieces in water.
• Cover and cook for 6-8 minutes or until pumpkin pieces are cooked completely and start to fall apart.
• Switch off, keep it covered until it cools down.

• Take the cooked mash into a blender and blend into a puree, you can fish out cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves at this stage if you think the flavors have infused enough for your taste, or go ahead and grind them along.
• Pass the ground mixture through a fine sieve and collect the smooth puree. Use one cup of this for the bread recipe below. I used remaining portion in my pumpkin-celery soup.

Making pumpkin bread

• Preheat oven to 350F and prepare a bread loaf pan with a coat of non stick spray and sprinkle a couple of pinches of flour.
• Take a large bowl, sieve the flours, baking soda, baking powder and the salt.  If you are using the spice powders, add them at this stage.
• Add brown sugar to it and mix well.
• In another bowl, combine pumpkin puree, oil, honey (or syrup) and water until oil integrated with the rest of the contents.
• Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture, fold in gently with a spoon until everything comes together. Do not over mix it.

• Add the chopped nuts and mix it in.
• Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 40 (to 45) minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
• Take out let it rest for 10-15 minutes before removing the bread from the loaf. Use a butter knife to nudge the bread from the sides.
• Let the bread cool down completely on a wire rack before slicing.

• Enjoy with a cup of chai :-)

Notes:

• I felt adding the whole spices to make the puree infused the spices much better than adding dry powders but the choice is yours especially if you are using a store bought pumpkin puree from the can.

• Like all breads, stay away from it until it is cooled down before slicing however strong the temptation is :-)

 

Linking this post to Baking partners



Banana walnut muffins - tasty way to consume overripe bananas

My baking repertoire is very limited. Though I have switched many of my Indian deep fried recipes to baking as alternative, I don't delve into full time baking in my kitchen. I am yet to overcome my inhibitions about baking. However there are some very simplistic baking recipes I dish out frequently to make myself feel good :-). You can find some of my successful baking experiments here, here & here.

After last weekend's bommala koluvu, as always I ended up with a bunch of fruits. BH & DD have a funny way of consuming fruits, they both love fruits as long as it is washed, cleaned and kept in front of them. I will have bags of oranges go unnoticed until I start peeling them, then there will be a pile of orange peels (and a plea for me to make Orange peel gojju) in a matter of minutes, same with other fruits.. they need someone (me) to start the process and then things will happen quickly when it comes to eating fruits. What can I say? it takes all kinds of people to balance this world :-) I could see the golden yellow bananas turning brown on their way to final stage of life. I have multiple ways for overripe banana nirvana in my kitchen and chose to make some plump muffins this time for DD to munch on while doing her homework.

If you have not tasted or heard of muffins, they are cute little roundish things that is widely popular as breakfast staples. For the uninitiated, they may look like cup cakes but they differ a lot from cupcakes. Googling for gyan, I found that muffins are made by preparing dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, pouring wet ingredients over the dry ones (for muffin purposes sugar is considered as a wet ingredient) while cup cakes go through the 'cream them together ' concept with their ingredients. Muffins are not overly sweet like cup cakes and they are not frosted either. There are muffins made with eggs and without eggs.

I am not a vegan in my diet but as a personal choice I avoid eggs in recipes if there is a way out. This banana walnut cake is one of them, I have been baking this for a while now, started with a buttery recipe that called for eggs and have morphed it into a no-butter, no egg recipe by some trial & error and here is a perfectly soft, deliciously sweet muffin.

What do you need to make banana walnut muffins? 
Makes 12 big muffins
Wet ingredients:
4 ripe bananas
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup oil (I used saffola oil, replace with canola or vegetable oil or with butter)
Dry ingredients: 
1.5 cups AP flour or maida
1 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp baking soda
1/8 Tsp salt
1/2 cup + 1 Tblsp chopped walnuts

How do you make banana walnut muffins? 

• Mash the bananas really well or run them in your blender like I do to make a puree.
• Mix the wet ingredients together in a bowl. 
• Sieve AP flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in another bowl, make a well in the center. 
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and mix them in gently with a spoon. 

• Fold in 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts. 
• Preheat oven to 375F, line a muffin tray with muffin liners. 
• Spoon the batter to 3/4 in each muffin groove. 
• Add a few chopped nuts on top. 

• Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

• Enjoy the muffins warm or cold for a hearty breakfast or evening snack. 

Notes: 

• It is important to not use a hand mixer or even mix for a long time with spoon as it activates the gluten while also using up the baking powder/soda. This causes muffins to not rise properly and turn them chewy & tough. Mix the ingredients gently until they come together.
• I use brown sugar instead of regular sugar as it gives a nice brown color to the muffins and adds to the flavor. Myth buster: brown sugar is not a healthier option than white sugar. 
• I have made these muffins with AP flour, bread flour and a combination of whole wheat and AP flour and we love it every time. If you are using wheat+AP flour, use 1 cup wheat and 1/2 cup AP flour. 
• Walnuts is a personal choice and traditional option, replace it with any nuts of your choice - almonds, pistachio, pine nuts etc for crunch or omit them completely. 
• Add 1/4 Tsp cardamom powder for the distinctive Indian dessert flavor if you like, bananas & cardamom are a great pair. I don't add it since DD doesn't like cardamom.

I am sending these muffins to Nupur's What with my Cuppa event.