Today I burned the pumpkin bread....

Fa. Lah. Lah.

It's a good darn thing I can write reasonably well.
Sure can't bake.

I made a pumpkin loaf today that could stand in as a church cornerstone. Followed the baking directions. Didn't just skid off in a different direction and forget it. No...I did it by the book.

Even made the browned butter glaze. Some glaze. It was thick as mortar paste. Did it ooze artistically down the sides of the loaf?

Hard to ooze anywhere when you're not even a liquid.

I can cook most anything southern. Baking is not my forte.

Now I know the holidays are officially upon us.

Other than that...life is good.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays...whatever you choose to celebrate.
Just don't expect me to bring the homemade dessert.

I only bake Christmas cookies. They don't turn out too bad, but the last time I baked anything else was a few years ago when I put oil with garlic in it in the brownie mix.

I did not invent a new recipe. Instead of that wonderful smell of brownies was a brownie garlic smell.

Now I serve ice cream for dessert.

Carol

Rhett,

I'm not a baker either. I stopped trying after I made a very chewy red velvet cake for my younger daugher several years ago.

Now I let my children bring the desserts.

Ann

Oh my! Desserts are my specialty. If I get in your neck of the woods, Rhett, I will bring you a loaf of the most moist and scrumptious pumpkin bread you ever tasted. I have always hated dry sweet breads and cakes, so I take extra precautions when I bake. I do it up in large batches and freeze much of it, which does not harm either the texture or the flavor.

Never had pumpkin bread - I don't think, but probably a similar recipe
was made by my mother and grandmother - banana bread. It became a
holiday favorite in my family.

Yes, Brew--they are basically the same thing, just different main ingredients.

Rhett, cornbread is suthun, and baked. Surely you have never burned cornbread... I like the crust a little crunchy anyway. LOL

Pumpkin bread is my favorite! How about taking orders, Zada? Bet you could make a fortune.

I never make mistakes in baking. My secret is simply not to bake.
You are free to use that recipe if you wish without obligation.

Brew,
I don't consider corn bread as baking...somehow. It's just normal food. My cornbread is flawless.

The cakes, pies, etc...those are the ones that hang me up. They are either overcooked or lopsided.

And Zada...I welcome any hint on how to make sure the middle of any kind of sweet bread is done and not overcook the edges! There has to be something I'm missing...

I'm really out of the loop. I don't know what a pumpkin loaf is. THAT is why I leave the baking to my wife.

Have a Merry Christmas anyway.

Malcolm

I love baking, especially at Christmas. Some of my favourite Christmas moments are really all about food, and mostly it's the baking. Rhett, if you're ever interested and visiting, just know that I'll help you get the stuff right. I've made ginger snaps, banana bread, mincemeat cookies and pies this year, and Dad sent a fruitcake. I really cannot do more because we are such a small bunch this year, but I always have to do some, just to get the smell right.

I would really appreciate someone sharing their cornbread recipe - it's something I have never tried to make but have really enjoyed when I was down in the states, and I bet my girls would love it too. Anyone got their recipe handy?

Merry Christmas!

Like Abe I don't bake and like Malcolm I'm out of the loop on this, never having eaten pumpkin bread and fervently hoping I never have it forced upon me.
But I love Rhett's line saying her pumplin bread could "stand in for a church cornerstone." This, in my humble opinion, would be a fitting use for such an unpalatable product.

Dick, although made with pumpkin, it tastes nothing like a vegetable, and certainly has no reminders of that green tree stuff that shall remain nameless. Add a splash of rum into whip cream to plop on top of a slice, and it's unforgettable. Not that you'd be tempted by rum and cream...but I am.

Oooooh, I am going to have to get a recipe for pumpkin bread and try it when I go home!!!!

Though, I am not baking at all ... I am on the road. PA to TX in the next day and half.

This time of the year Dunkin Donuts adds pumpkin muffins and pumpkin donuts to their shelves. YUM!!!!

I am a pretty good cook and baker ... whenever I get around to doing it. Although, I did learn that, when I moved from the Bay Area to Reno, I had to make sure to adjust for the high altitude.

High and dry can really mess up a cake!!

Sorry about your loaf Mad! But I know you; and you somehow found the humor in it. That's just one of the things that make you the wonderful person that you are.

Have a lovely Winter Solstice Season everyone!

OK, Pam, but you eat the pumpkin bread and give me the rum in a shot glass.

Hope the roads are good for you. Elf. This must be a tough time of year to be driving a truck. Have a nice, safe Christmas.

It seems to me that our attitudes toward vegetables and foods made from them often have to do with the way we are used to havimg them cooked. I never cared for them at home. Good fresh produce was sometimes hard to come by in the community where I grew up, so we generally ate canned. When I visited my grandparents farm, and the vegetables came fresh from the garden, I liked them much better, but they were still overcooked by today's standards. Brussel sprouts was a good example of something that could taste really awful out of a can or cooked until the bright green color became that hideous blue-gray mush. I always thought of them as they had been served to me as a child, so I never tried to cook them, but my daughter taught me to lightly saute them in a little olive oil and butter, and serve them while they were still a vivid green, and now I like them a lot.

I still don't care much for zucchini, but the zucchini bread that I'm serving tomorrow is so good that I have to hide it from myself to make sure there's enough left for after dinner.

I learned while writing A Myth in Action that Audie Murphy didn't like vegetables either, but that his neighbor in Celeste, Texas, Mrs. Cawthorn, made a pumpkin bread that was so good, Murhpy claimed it was what he fought to get back home to. His biographer, Harold Simpson, interviewed Mrs. Cawthorn, and published her recipe in Audie Murphy: American Soldier. It's an interesting recipe, clearly written in an earlier time and place, fun to just read (Aaagh, split infinitive!! ), even if you wouldn't want to eat it.

Mrs. Cawthorn's Pumpkin Bread

5 coffee cans and lids
5 cups flour
4 cups sugar
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon of cloves
1 teaspoon of salt
1 large can pumpkin
1 cup Wesson Oil or Crisco Oil
2 cups chopped dates
2 cups chopped pecans
2 teaspoons vanilla
2/3 cup water
3 eggs beaten

Mix all together and divide equally in five cans. Grease well, bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until done. Take out of cans and cool, then put back in cans and put lids on and store in ice box. Use as needed.

Professional eater here, willing to accept all forms of baking items that have gone wrong or right. Will provide expert analysis of your baked goods at absolutely no cost to you. Receive a professional review of your food items before you try it out on your guests.

Pam said:

Quote :

I would really appreciate someone sharing their
cornbread recipe - it's something I have never tried to make but have
really enjoyed when I was down in the states, and I bet my girls would
love it too. Anyone got their recipe handy?

Pam, my wife is going to pass along her cornbread recipe. Just as soon
as she gets it typed up I will post it here. (She made a big pone today but it all went into the dressing) It is just like my
grandmother used to make - maybe even better!

BTW, my grandmother was born on Christmas day, 1901. Today she would have been 107 years old.

Pam,

This one has been in my family for several generations:

1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
(original recipe - 1/4 cup shortening or lard)
Modern version - 1/4 cup olive oil or olive oil spray)

Preheat oven to 425. Melt/heat oil or shortening in a square metal pan;
Sift the dry ingredients. Beat the egg with the milk and add to dry ingredients. Mix until blended. Do not over mix.
Add cornmeal mixture to hot pan and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until top is golden brown and springs back when touched.

The truth is, my mother and I stopped using it some years ago, and my daughters never started. We buy a packet of "CornKits" and follow the directions. The manufacturers must have known the family recipe. It tastes just the same.

Ann

Here's a tease until my wife gets the recipe written...



She makes a mean pot o' soup, too!

I love some of the above recipes, especially since I lost a lot of mine. I never thought of cooking breads in coffee cans, so that's a great idea, one I'll try.

For cornbread, I just follow the one on the back of the cornmeal box, only I omit the sugar. The main thing, if you like a crunchy texture, is to grease your pan - like Brew, I use an iron skillet - and heat it in the oven, then pour in the batter. My grandmother used to grease it with bacon grease, but of course, back then, everything was made with bacon grease.

For variety, and since most Southerner's like me love anything fried, I omit the baking powder and drop tablespoons of the batter into hot cooking oil, smaller than pancakes, and fry until the edges are crispy. Drain on paper towels, and as soon as the bread is cool enough to touch without burning your fingers, spread with butter.

I love all the different takes on these breads. Brenda, your little fried cakes remind me of what my ex's family called "hot-water cornbread," and what my mom's family called pone bread or hoecakes, both made with just lightly salted cornmeal and boiling water. Pone bread was fried in more fat - usually oil or shortening, and hoecakes were spread in a small, lightly greased skillet and turned as they started to brown.

While doing research for Ailcy's Legacy, I learned that the term, "hoecakes," originated in the early colonial days. A hoe was heated in an open fire, and the cornmeal batter was spread on the hot hoe to cook.

Pone is another interesting term, with different meanings in different places. In addition to the pone bread above - a very different bread from that in Brew's family, my grandmother sometimes made "sweet potato pone," with grated sweet potatoes, butter, and brown sugar. I wonder where the term "pone" originated.

Rhett, we seem to be taking your post in a different direction. I hope that's OK. I do sympathize with your pumpkin bread predicament, and hope we haven't taken it too far off track.

Ann

Brenda,

What you describe sounds a little like a variation on 'hushpuppies'!

Brew,

Reba's recipe sounds great. My cornbread always came out dry and crumbly, so I gave up on making it! I like that she uses buttermilk, as it really adds good texture and extra moisture to most things. I will have to print it out and try it, but don't know if some of the ingredients are available here; I will check when I can get out the driveway again!

A few tricks I use to make sweet bread:

Always use BUTTER, not margarine

Don't skimp on any of the ingredients. (If the recipe calls for 1 cup of brown sugar, always pack it down hard, and if it domes up in the middle, don't worry about it.)

If my recipe calls for 3 cups of bananas, a little extra (not a lot) only makes it moister and gives more flavor.

Lots of nuts in any sweet bread only enhnaces it--I use chopped walnuts for the most part.

Dates are a welcome addition to pumpkin along with the nuts.

If the butter is in small lumps after mixing the batter, so much the better

Don't over bake. When the top crust splits and still looks slightly moist, if the section next to the split springs back when touched lightly, it is DONE.

I let my breads cool slightly (5 minutes or so) before removing from the pans and then spread a small amount of BUTTER on the top crust while still warm. It gives the crust a nice texture.

If anyone wants the recipes I use, just pm me and I will gladly share them.