Pumpkin Tested and Tasted

We're trying to fake fall around here. I've made soup, ordered jeans for Sophie in size 2T and started pulling out the pumpkin recipes. I love everything about fall and can't wait for all the fun ahead in the next few months. Here are a couple of the pumpkin recipes we've made recently.

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
(adapted from All Recipes)

This is my go to basic pumpkin bread recipe. I normally don't change a thing about it, but this time I didn't have enough white sugar so I had to substitute some brown sugar and I like the way it turned out. Be warned, this recipe is huge. It makes three loaves!

Ingredients:
1 15oz can of pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
2 cups white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cups all-pupose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease/flour your three loaf pans.

In a large bowl mix together all the wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, oil, water) and your sugars until well blended.

In another bowl, whisk together the remaining dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt and spices.)

Stir your dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into your prepared pans.

Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Here's an amazing recipe we just tried for the first time:

Pumpkin Poppers

(found on Just the Little Things)

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1/2 cup milk

for the coating:

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

2/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray mini muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and spices in a bowl and whisk to combine.

In another bowl, mix oil, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, pumpkin and milk. Pour in flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fill mini muffin tins until almost full and bake 10-12 minutes.

Melt butter in a small bowl. Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a separate bowl. After the poppers cool for a few minutes, dip them in butter and roll them in the cinnamon sugar mix. 

I was tired the night I was making these and completely forgot to add the milk in my recipe! I realized it once they were already baking and it was too late to do anything about it. Surprisingly, they still turned out amazing! They did seem to get dry quickly over the next couple of days though so I wouldn't recommend leaving it out on purpose!

I've got plenty of other recipes I'm dying to try, all courtesy of Pinterest of course! Check these out:

Pumpkin Blondies

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins