Healthy Pumpkin Bread With Cinnamon Chips

Dave looked at me like I was crazy when he saw me standing in front of a counter full of ingredients, and I don’t blame him. Every afternoon I get this lightheadedness and feel dizzy, and the feeling extends well into the evening, and yet there I was, setting up mixing bowls and measuring cups. I couldn’t help it; I felt the call.

Also, today is Juliet’s 5th birthday! More on that later, with an irresistible photo or two, but you’ll have to wait until the pumpkin bread is ready to get there.

Yes, pumpkin bread. I love pumpkin bread, and I have a lot of different recipes for it, and of course the best ones have loads of butter. So I was drawn to a recipe for it from Good Housekeeping with no butter, very little oil, some yogurt, and this quote at the top:

triple-tested at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute

After reading through what it means, it made me want a job at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute. Fun!

Anyway, it looked easy enough to make, with some good potential for deliciousness.

First I whisked together the brown sugar and two egg whites.

Then I added the rest of the wet ingredients: oil, yogurt, and vanilla.

I stirred that together, then took a separate bowl out for the dry ingredients: flour (whole wheat white instead of the white & wheat mix suggested), baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I doubled the cinnamon and threw in a little extra nutmeg too.

I whisked that together, then added it to the first bowl.

Now I should have been done once I had the dry ingredients incorporated, but I thought some cinnamon chips might spice things up a little. They always do.

The recipe said to bake for 45-50 minutes; mine was done by in 43.

I let it sit in the pan for another ten minutes, then set it free.

And I just tasted it. The cinnamon chips were a great idea and the bread itself is as delicious as I hoped. Dense but soft, sweet without overdoing it, nice mix of spices, and the cinnamon chips put it over the edge. Good call! I like this one.

HEALTHY PUMPKIN BREAD RECIPE

Now as for Juliet, she turned 5 today, and I can’t believe it. Five! I think it’ll be just as astonishing to me when Nathaniel turns 9 in a few months. We gave her Rapunzel’s dress from the movie Tangled — an excellent movie, by the way — and she LOVES it. She wore it all morning, and put it on again before we went out for dinner to celebrate. Here she is this morning, before I left for work.