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Recipe for "pumpkin-bread"

NAME

     PUMPKIN-BREAD - A dessert bread made from pumpkins
     Every year in Half Moon Bay, California there is  a  Pumpkin
     Festival,  at which prizes are given for the largest pumpkin
     in the world. Never mind that for the  last  two  years  the
     winner  has  been  in Nova Scotia: the citizens of Half Moon
     Bay take pumpkins very seriously.
     At Christmastime in Half Moon Bay, people  give  each  other
     little  tins of this bread as presents. I also take it back-
     packing, because it's pretty  resistant  to  being  squashed
     (and tastes fine even when it is).

INGREDIENTS (3 500-gram loaves)

     570 g     granulated sugar
     350 g     all-purpose flour
     2.5 ml    salt
     10 ml     baking soda
     5 ml      cinnamon
     5 ml      nutmeg
     4         large eggs
     250 ml    vegetable oil
     350 g     cooked pumpkin
     160 ml    water
     175 g     chopped walnuts
               cream cheese (optional; for serving)

PROCEDURE

          (1)  Preheat the oven to 175 deg. C.
          (2)  Butter your containers well.
          (3)  Sift the dry ingredients  together  into  a  large
               bowl.
          (4)  Make a well in the center of the dry  ingredients,
               and  add  the  eggs, oil, pumpkin and water.  Beat
               thoroughly.  It's easier to get all the lumps  out
               if you use an electric mixer.
          (5)  Stir in the walnuts with a wooden spoon.
          (6)  Pour the batter into the containers, filling  each
               only half to two-thirds full.
          (7)  Bake for 60-90 minutes, depending on the sizes  of
               your  containers.   If  you're  using a very small
               container, start checking much sooner.  The  bread
               is  done  when a toothpick in the middle comes out
               clean.
          (8)  Cool about ten minutes, then loosen the  edges  of
               the  bread  with a knife, and turn out of the pans
               to cool the rest of the way on a rack.

NOTES

     For baking containers, you can use a loaf pan,  metal  cans,
     or  whatever.   I  usually  use  1-pound coffee cans, and it
     takes three of them. If you  want  tiny  loaves,  you  could
     probably use soup cans.
     I think the nuts are important in this recipe.   Unless  you
     absolutely hate them, leave them in.
     It's not necessary, but you can serve some good cream cheese
     with it to spread on the slices if you like.

RATING

     Difficulty: easy to moderate.  Time: 15 minutes preparation,
     90 minutes cooking.  Precision: measure the ingredients.

CONTRIBUTOR

     Vicki O'Day
     Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, California, USA
     hplabs!oday