Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf

“I’m glad I took the whole piece.”

That’s what Dave said after he came upstairs to taste the Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf I made tonight. He took half of the piece I cut for him, but I told him to take the whole thing.

He was glad.

He said so!

(And by the way, that’s demerara sugar on top making the loaf look like that, not some weird loaf disease.)

I wasn’t really going to bake anything extra tonight, but more family is on the way! They get here tomorrow and we can’t wait.

We already made sugar cookies, shaped like stars, at cousin Ella’s request, but I decided to make another treat for the whole family, and this was a recipe I’ve wanted to try for a while. Plus I knew I had pumpkin to use up, plus it was a one-bowl recipe, which was especially helpful since I made carrot oatmeal muffins too. I’m out of breakfast muffins.

Even though the recipe said to put everything in one bowl, I considered just going the traditional route and doing dry & wet ingredients separately. I stopped considering it when I realized the only wet ingredients were pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla. With that as the list, it made sense to stick to Plan A.

I started with the flour (whole wheat white), cocoa powder, white & brown sugars, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla.

Then, I tripped on something. What did I trip on? This:

Yes, that’s a disembodied doll arm. Creepy, isn’t it? The leg is in the living room. The kids think it’s hilarious.

I recovered quickly, and faced my pumpkin problem: the recipe called for half a can of pumpkin, and I had most of a can in the fridge. It would have been tricky enough just figuring out half from a full can, but the partially used can presented a challenge. Eyeballing measurements is not one of my strengths.