Harvest Loaf

FOUND IT: This is a family recipe, from a book of them given to me as a wedding gift.

This is a good, relatively traditional pumpkin bread recipe. There's a glaze to add at the end if you want it to be more like a cake, but I skipped it.

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs*
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree, canned or homemade
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
  
• 3/4 cup walnuts, chopped (I skipped them)

* - About halfway through, the recipe calls for eggs. But it doesn't mention how many, and they don't appear on the ingredient list. I guessed 3, and everything worked out. Two would probably make the dough a little too dry, but four might add some needed moisture.

Spray a loaf pan. In a medium bowl, combine flour, soda, salt and spices. In another medium bowl, cream the butter, then gradually add the sugar, then the eggs. Beat well. At this point, I put the mixer away and do the rest by hand.

Add roughly half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir them in. Repeat the process with the pumpkin, then the other half of the dry ingredients. Stir in the chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of the walnuts. Spread into your loaf pan, and sprinkle the remaining walnuts on top. Bake at 350 65-75 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Once it's cool, you can add the spice glaze if so desired: stir together 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tbsp cream, or enough to give it the desired consistency.