Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread or Muffins

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Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread

Adapted from glutenfreepalate.com by My Little Blue Heron

This one’s a winner. It’s crazy easy to put together, and thanks to the addition of rolled oats, it has a soft and fine crumb . It's beautifully moist.

Bake loaves or muffins. Today, I made jumbo muffins. 

I use canned, organic pumpkin (don’t use pumpkin pie filling!) If you opt to use your own cooked pumpkin, be sure to go by weight, rather than volume. If it’s steamed, puree and drain.

The original recipe calls for avocado oil (which I just used in my coleslaw recipe and it ruined the coleslaw. Avocado oil is wonderful, but it’s a dominating and heavy oil, great for high heat, but not for coleslaw. Here, opt for Canola, Sunflower or Safflower oil.

Weighing your ingredients is best practice. Results will be consistent no matter what brand you use. GF flour brand? I love King Arthur Measure for Measure. Some people love Bob’s Red Mill. Use whatever brand you like best. But weigh it. This recipe should have a flour blend that has binder (xanthan or guar gum). All “measure for measure” blends do.

Any milk’ll do. You can put this together with a wire whisk, a hand mixer, or a stand mixer. I use a hand mixer.

You can use a ready-made “pumpkin pie spice”, but I prefer to blend my own. Here’s my “Sweet Spice Blend”… it’s a tweak on an Ayurvedic blend, so if you don’t like the cardamom, omit it. Whisk the spices together and put in a glass jar. Sprinkle on your oatmeal, yogurt and use as a spice for any recipe calling for a 'warm' spice blend .. like oatmeal cookies!

2 Tbsp. Ground ginger, 2 Tbsp. Ground cinnamon, 1/2 Tbsp. Ground cardamom, 1/2 tsp. Ground cloves, Nutmeg: freshly ground, to taste.

Pumpkin is great in the fall and winter, and some love it all year!

Wishes for a world overflowing with peace, love, justice and democracy in 2024,

Jane

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread

Equipment: Loaf pan, lightly greased with oil or release spray or muffin tins, lightly greased or lined with baking cups. (Silicone’s okay). I like the “If you care” brand of paper liners. A large and medium mixing bowl, measuring cups, measuring spoons, spatula.

Ingredients:

• 1 c./240g pumpkin purée
• 2 eggs, size large, room temperature
• 1/3 cup flavorless oil (see above)
• 1/3 cup almond milk (or any milk)
• 1 1/4 c./150g cup for cup (measure 4 measure) GF flour blend (King Arthur is great!)
• 1/2 c./50g GF rolled oats (you can sprinkle more on top for a cute finish .. see photo!)
• 3/4 c./150g granulated white sugar
• 1/2 tsp./3 g baking soda
• 1/2 tsp./2 g baking powder (make sure it’s fresh!)
• 1/2 tsp./2g salt 
• 1/2 tsp. Ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. “Sweet Spice Blend” (see above) OR pumpkin pie spice

Procedure:

• Preheat oven to 350º F (180º C) 
• Prepare baking pans (see above “equipment”)
• Large mixing bowl (or if using a stand mixer, its bowl, fill with all wet ingredients (first four on the list)
• Medium mixing bowl: measure all following dry ingredients (including sugar and spices) and whisk together to combine well. Set aside.
• Blend wet ingredients until well combined, smooth and creamy.
• Dump in the combined dry ingredients and mix well until incorporated.
• Fill loaf pan or muffin tins and bake on rack in middle of preheated oven, length of time is dependent on vessel, for 25 - 45 minutes. A toothpick inserted in center should come out clean, with perhaps a few crumbs clinging. No wet stuff!
• Remove from oven and when loaf is cool enough to release, remove gently and let cool completely before serving. Wrapped well, this will keep for a few days in the fridge. Loaf always freezes beautifully.

Pumpkin Bread 2010

As economic recovery stalls, largely due to fear and opposition to change and the pitfalls of how government can really ruin our lives, my new mantra is "use it up". I have too much.

These aren't, as my last husband used to say, the 'salad days'. But don't poo-poo the low-cost joy and healing power of fooling around with gourds.

peace and love,
jane

Pumpkin Bread

Blue Heron Kitchen

Don't let fall leave without pumpkin bread.   

This year’s updated Pumpkin Bread, like last year’s, doesn't leave that oily residue on your fingers because it has no oil. It's better that way because it uses a little butter.  And what I like about this most is that it doesn’t have that generic clove-heavy, “autumn spice” blend that guarantees to any other ingredient you might otherwise taste. It’s not cloyingly sweet; and the subtler spicing and ‘rougher’ texture renders a true quick bread.  This bread ain't no loaf.

Feel free to play around with combinations of nuts and dried fruit.  This year, I opted for dried Monterey cherries, and I added a smidge of orange oil.

I’ve used both home-cooked organic pumpkin as well as canned pumpkin. Either is great. Today, I used Whole Foods’ “365” brand. 

Never cut corners on butter. Give it the sniff test to make sure it’s fresh. You be the judge.  Here’s how I decide whether to use it or lose it: I ask myself (probably aloud): would I make plain butter cookies with this butter?  Try to find 83% fat European style butter.  Plugra (made by Hotel Bar) and Cabot’s are two American-made brands that are excellent.  If you only buy American, Land-o-Lakes is the best. Fairway markets carry the domestic 83% butters (and they’re less expensive than Land-o-Lakes, go figure).

Ingredients:

1 ¾ c. (15 oz. can) cooked pumpkin, fresh or canned

1 c. dark or light (or a combination of) brown sugars, firmly packed (what’s critical is that it’s fresh and moist)

½ c. granulated white sugar

4 oz. (1/2 cup or 1 stick) unsalted butter (European style is best), room temperature

3 eggs, size large, room temperature

2 ¼ c. unbleached all-purpose flour

2 ¼ c. whole wheat pastry flour (Bob’s Red Mill is a great choice and it’s available at Fairway Markets, online and through Amazon)

2 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. ground cardamom (freshly ground is best)

½ tsp. ground nutmeg (freshly ground is best)

¾ tsp. kosher salt

1 ½ c. walnuts, toasted, cooled and chopped

½ c. dried Monterey (or other) cherries, chopped and sprinkled with 1/8 tsp. orange oil (available through King Arthur Flour and through Amazon). Or, you can soak them in a tsp. of Grand Marnier or Cointreau.

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350º F. 

Butter or spray pans with release: two medium loaf pans, several smaller loaf pans of the same capacity, or a even smaller molds (you’ll work it out) If using paper molds, (great for gift giving/impressing friends and pretending you’re a professional baker.) you don’t need to do anything but set them on a flat cookie sheet.

In a large bowl, measure flours, baking powder, spices and salt and mix thoroughly with a whisk. Set aside.

Prepare nuts and dried fruit and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and sugars.  When light and fluffy, add eggs and mix until blended well.  Add pumpkin (it will look curdled). Add dry ingredients, all at once. Don’t over-mix (interesting historical note: from this common but easily avoidable baker's boo-boo, the colloquialism, “tough pumpkins”). 

Remove from the mixer and using a spatula, fold in nuts and dried fruit until just incorporated.

Gently spoon (really ‘drop’) batter into prepared pans. Be sure there is batter in the corners.  But don’t press, push, flatten or mess around with this batter.  Think of plopping it, like cobbler batter, into the pans and ‘working it’ as little as possible.  This isn’t a fine-crumbed quick-bread.  It’s has more of a ‘spoon bread’ personality.  It’s a coarser crumb and more toothsome, (but it won’t be ‘dry’ if you don’t over-mix or over-anything the batter).

Bake until a metal tester comes out clean and dry. Be careful not to over-bake these loaves, or you’ll yell I should just stop this and stick to teaching Für Elise because you almost choked to death. As soon as they spring back and don’t feel ‘wet’ in the middle, they’re ‘done’. And depending on the size of the forms you use, they’ll bake for anywhere from 15 minutes (mini-muffins, anyone?) to ¾ of an hour! Your molds, your oven, your judgment. (Keep a thermometer in it until you’ve made friends.)

Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes before turning the breads out of their pans.  (If you use paper molds, there is no need to release them.) When completely cooled, wrap well.

Like you, these grow more fabulous with age. Try to let them rest overnight.

Wrapped well, these will keep for a week or two.  I’ll be freezing mine until our annual Faux Thanksgiving this December.

Pumpkin Bread 2010