Pumpkin Bread (C&H Brown Sugar recipe)
The dinner we hosted this week was a perfect excuse to make one of my all-time favorite baked good: pumpkin bread. Fortuitously, a recipe for Pumpkin Spice Bread appeared in the otherwise crummy USA Today Sunday magazine, and that inspired me to make three recipes and foist them upon our hapless friends.
The three contenders:
A: The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking, Pumpkin Bread (p. 774). (Never sure where to draw the line at copyright violation, but I'm pretty sure scanning the recipe straight out of the book counts.)
B: Pumpkin Spice Bread, from USA Today Sunday magazine, Oct. 14 2007.
C: Pumpkin Bread, from the back of a bag of C&H brown sugar, a potluck-standby I've used for years.
I made a half-portion of each recipe, and used the same can of pureed pumpkin and spices for all three. I stayed absolutely true to each recipe, rather than my usual random tossing in extra pumpkin pie spice, testing the limits of nutmeg, or letting my son shake in cinnamon with abandon. All three went into the same-sized mini-loaf pans (marked with a Sharpie on aluminum foil) and were baked at the same time. So, for the most part, variables were controlled.
(A, B and C are left to right in the photos.)
It was immediately apparent that not all pumpkin bread is created equal! Recipe A used butter instead of oil, white sugar instead of brown, and made for the lightest batter, and the only one that held its shape. Recipe B called for cooking the pumpkin slightly, accounting for its darker color, and the batter was liquidy enough to pour. Recipe C is the easiest: just throw everything in a bowl and mix it, but the batter was the heaviest.
The baked loaves were different too. Recipe B needed a little extra baking time, but I think I put a little more batter in that pan anyway. Recipe A seemed the driest to cut, but that's relative; they were all moist. Recipe B had the most even texture to it, and Recipe C was the chunkiest, if that's a term to describe cake texture.
So I cut them into columns of easy-to-grab pieces, labelled them with A B and C placecards, and set up a sign encouraging people to taste-test and write comments.
And the winner was? By a narrow margin, Recipe A.
The A stack was the first to go, though the numerous trips my sons made with plates loaded down with pumpkin bread could have had something to do with that. Comments indicated that Recipe B had the best pumpkin flavor, C was the driest, and A was the sweetest, but also the best-liked. Things people said directly indicated A as a favorite too, though even a foodie-baking-expert friend (who wouldn't dream of using canned pumpkin and grows her own instead) said she couldn't tell that one had butter in it. One interesting comment said "B has a rich pumpkin flavor like in India."
Ironically, I'm the worst pumpkin bread judge, because I absolutely love pumpkin bread and would just as soon choose between my three children than have to pick a favorite pumpkin bread. For the future, I'll choose a recipe based on the situation: how much time do I have (Recipe C), who is my audience (Recipe B for grownups), do I feel like cleaning beaters (Recipe A).
Until then, I'll begin a delicious quest for Recipes D, E, and F.
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