Spiced Pumpkin Cranberry bread and a Celebration

I am really very happy to announce that my blog baby has turned 2 today. I started it as fun thing to do and as a web record of my recipe collection. It got me lot of friends and readers and also has helped me to improve a lot in cooking as well as in my writing skills. Still I have miles to go. I think my blog baby will accompany me through that journey.  Many hearty thanks to all who took their valuable time to comment, read and give opinion.  I am looking forward to this continued support in future too.

I won’t keep anything in draft, because I won’t get any time to write and keep it there. So whatever I publish is written on that day or the day before.  There is my little princess who always keeps me busy, she wants to do cooking, take picture and even do the taste testing. She is my best critic, if the food doesn’t have the taste she expect she won’t take  a single bite indicating that it is  not worth to post it.

One more happy news, my little princess is going to be big sister, I am expecting my second bundle of Joy. I think both princess and he will make my hands full.  I hope I can continue to blog even though with a reduced number of post.

To celebrate blog baby’s birthday I made this pumpkin cranberry bread. When I first saw this recipe  in King Arthur flour blog, I wanted to try it immediately, asked my hubby, he told me yes you can.  In the original recipe they used canned pumpkin. Both me and hubby thought, we can use fresh pumpkin instead of the canned one. So for one Sunday grocery shopping I bought a 2 pound pumpkin. After looking at various methods of homemade pumpkin puree making I decide to use the pressure cooker, it made the job easy. From 2 pounds of pumpkin I was able to get two cups of pumpkin puree. As homemade puree contains more water than the canned one, I skipped the addition of water as mentioned in the original recipe. Instead of chocolate chips I used cranberries and  made two batches. The first batch with 1 cup of sugar, and the next one with reduced sugar of ¾ cup.   I spiced up with cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, allspice and vanilla extract. Both the breads came out soft, moist and delicious. Now pumpkin bread has also got the place next to banana bread in our kitchen. I am going to try them more often.  Here goes the recipe

One year ago: Peda : A milk sweet
Two year ago: Banana walnut muffin
Print recipe from here:

What you need
Recipe adapted from here

For homemade pumpkin puree

Pumpkin: 2 pounds

Water: ½ cup

Pumpkin bread

Pumpkin puree: 1 cup

All purpose flour: 1 ½ cup

Sugar: ¾ cup + 2 tablespoon

 Light Olive oil: 1/3 cup

Egg:  2 no

Nutmeg: ½ teaspoon

Cinnamon: ½ teaspoon

Ground ginger: ½ teaspoon

All spice: ¼ teaspoon

Vanilla extract: ½ teaspoon

Baking powder: ¼ teaspoon

Baking soda: 1 teaspoon

Salt:  ¾ teaspoon

Cranberries: ½ cup

How I made

For pumpkin puree

Remove the skin and cut into big chunks of pumpkin and pressure cook them with ½ cup water for 15 minutes. Once they are cool enough to touch, using a blender or food processor make fine puree. If you want to remove the extra moisture you can strain the puree using a cheese cloth. I didn’t do this step.

For pumpkin cranberry bread

Preheat oven 350 degree Fahrenheit. Butter the bottom of an 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pan.

In a large bowl sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ground ginger, all spice, nutmeg, and salt and keep aside.

In a medium bowl beat egg with sugar and add oil and vanilla extract, to this add pumpkin puree and mix everything   to get incorporated well.

Gradually add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix everything well.

Finally fold in cranberries coated with little flour ( I forgot to do coating with flour, that will help uniform spreading ).

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smoothen the tops with a spatula.  Bake for 50 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Cool the bread in the pan for 5 minutes and remove it and cool in the wire rack for another 1 hour.

Cut into slices and enjoy.

Preparation time: 55 minutes

Serving:  1 loaf

Verdict: Yummy. Keeper recipe

Will you make it again: I will