The Pumpkin Puree Discovery!

Since I'm planning a huge, traditional Thanksgiving dinner for a few friends here in England at the end of the week, I have been on the hunt for cans of pureed pumpkin to use in the pumpkin chiffon pie that our family's favorite, but kept coming up empty until about a week ago.

Selfridge's Department Store in London and here in Birmingham both stock Libby's Canned Pumpkin during the holiday seasons every year, but apparently the pumpkin harvest wasn't great this year, so production was a bit delayed, and the store's shipments arrived later than usual. I bought 4 cans of pumpkin when it finally arrived at Selfridge's here, then bought some more last week in London where I found it at Whole Foods for about 1 GBP cheaper per can than at Selfridges.

Now that I'm well stocked in pumpkin puree, I decided to use a 1/2 can to make some pumpkin bread to nibble on this week. Here's the recipe I used (measurements are in UK equivalents):

INGREDIENTS

250g pumpkin puree

210g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

200g sugar

1 tsp baking soda

120ml (1/2 c.) olive oil

2 eggs, beaten

60ml (1/4 c.) water

1/2 tsp. each nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice

100g coarsely chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS

1. Sift together the flour salt, sugar and baking soda in a large bowl or food processor.

2. Combine the pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, water and spices with the dry ingredients using a wisk or wisk attachment on the food processor. Stir in the nuts, then pour the mixture into a well-greased loaf tin and bake at 180 C (350 F) for about 50-60 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

3. Turn the loaf out onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely before serving.