Pumpkin Butter Bread

A few months ago, I heard about Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter. It sounded like some of the most delicious stuff in the entire universe. However, I wasn't sure I could justify spending $2.29 on only 10oz of the stuff. So I did a quick internet search and found several recipes (and when I say several I mean everyone seems to make the stuff) for how to make it. I ended up cobbling together my own recipe (which I foolishly did not write down) to make a small batch. It turned out pretty well. The apple cider I used in it meant that it had a very particular aroma when warm, but it was still delicious. Unfortunately, like so many of the new things I make that Mike won't eat, I forgot about it. And it sat in the refrigerator for a very, very long time.

I finally took pity on it a couple days ago and took it out of the fridge to see if it was still good. There was no mold and it smelt fine, so I figured it was probably okay. I decided that since I wasn't very good at remembering to put it on toast or in oatmeal, I should use it to bake something. I toyed with the idea of making Pumpkin Soup, but that's apparently cream/milk based, so that was out. In the end I decided to make Pumpkin Butter Bread, since I love the Pumpkin Bread I normally make. I almost just substituted the Pumpkin Butter into the recipe I usually make, but I decided I should maybe find a recipe specifically for it. So here it is! (I apologize for some of the wonky measurements. I halved the original recipe so it was only one loaf.)

So...I forgot to take a picture until after I'd already eaten some.

Pumpkin Butter Bread
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup pumpkin butter
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs (room temp)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup raisins (my own addition)



1) Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9x5x3 loaf pan (as you could a cake pan).

2) Mix flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl. Stir in raisins. In a large bowl, mix pumpkin butter, sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, and 1/4 cup water. Stir in walnuts. A bit at a time, add the flour mix to the pumpkin mix. Pour into loaf pan.

3) Bake 45-50 minutes until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. (For some reason, it took much longer for me to get mine to set all the way.) Let cool in pan on a wire rack for ten minutes. Remove from loaf pan and cool completely on wire rack.

As I mentioned, I had to keep mine in the oven quite a bit longer than it said for it to bake completely through. This seems to happen more often than not with sweet bread I've noticed, especially ones like pumpkin and banana that have a puree in them. The result was that the loaf turned out a bit darker than normal, but it is still delicious! I honestly don't taste much of a difference between this an my normal Pumpkin Bread, but at least I used up a lot of the Pumpkin Butter. I think I'm going to make a riff on these No-Bake Energy Bites with the rest of it.