The Halloween was over and I had a day off before Remember’s day.
I realized I can’t sit and watch TV. To me, when a day off happens it equals to “Cooking experiments” and I like to create new recipes for my family. I had that “Decorative” small pumpkins sitting on my dinning room table and I don’t like to waste food. I was not sure how much “puree” I could get from that small pumpkins but at least I could get a whole cup. Believe or not I ended up with a whole big glass container full of puree!
I had an old banana bread family recipe that I believe I could adapt and include some spices, nuts, raisins, coconut and adding some pumpkin beautiful color of the fall to the bread that by the way our Fall has been extended in Winnipeg this year with incredible warmer temperatures. Why not celebrate that with good food?
I like that my kids get exposed to new flavorful recipes that are healthy and nutritious too. You can easily make this recipe Dairy Free, just substitute the butter for Becel® with Olive Oil that is kosher too what means you can serve this dessert in a Shabbat dinners with meats.
I tested in two formats , muffins and bread, both ended up successful but my son enjoyed the muffins more and he asked me to add something else on top other than pumpkin seeds, next time I will try poppy seeds, grape seeds or chocolate chips.
The recipe is easy to reproduce, the only thing is that for the pumpkin puree you need to add the extra time to roast them, maybe you can do this step the day before.
I don’t recommend you use”pumpkin pie Can” filling..Cans overall is a NO NO in my house. Other than tomato sauce and coconut milk, the other can I have is Cat food. I like to use organic ingredients and these beautiful pumpkins we got from a Local Farm we went weeks ago. And using REAL pumpkin filling will add so much for your health and your kids energy level. It is a good way to hide their vegetables. I can bet you the kids will love so much they will ask the second piece like my son did. Enjoy!
INGREDIENTS:
½ cup butter (1 stick) or Becel olive oil ( dairy free option)
1 ½ cups Golden Yellow Natural sugar
3 eggs
2 big ripe bananas, mashed well
1 cup pumpkin puree (no cans please)
1 1/2 cups of Robin Hood Best for Cake & Pastry Flour
1/2 cup of organic coconut flour
1/3 cup of Organic Oat Flakes
1/3 cup of crushed pecans
1/4 cup of yellow raisins (they have a little more sodium and an extra gram of fiber)
1/3 cup of unsweetened Organic Coconut flakes
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 table spoons of squeezed ginger juice
1/3 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground clove
½ tsp salt
1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds for the garnish on top ( You can use the poppy seed or CHOCOLATE CHIPS)
1 table spoon of coconut oil for the pumpkin pure and for the loaf pan ( Cooking Parchment Paper)
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You can use the half part of a regular pumpkin or you can use 2 small ones like I did. Get some Cooking Parchment Paper and separate, cut your pumpkin in half, remove all the seeds and you can roast them later like I did. Spread coconut oil in every corner of the pumpkin avoiding the skin, than wrap them in the Cooking Parchment Paper and put in the oven for one hour and 30 min. Let it cool down and than scoop the insides and separate in a container for later. No need to use a mixer, we will use the puree the way you scooped out. You will have extra puree that you can keep in the fridge for a pumpkin soup. Keep the oven warm for baking your bread/ muffins.
Than Grease a large loaf pan with coconut oil and cut more Cooking Parchment Paper and cover the loaf pan, the coconut oil should be use again on top of the paper, but only a little amount like 1 tea spoon. Separate for later.
In a Mixer bowl (I use a KITCHENAID Artisan Stand Mixer) put on medium speed and cream butter and sugar together for 2 minutes. Add the eggs one by one. Add the oats and Get 2 big bananas and mashed it with 1 table spoon of vanilla extract and add the pumpkin puree to the bowl. Than grate 15 cm of ginger root with the skin than with your hand squeeze the juice out into a strainer and container and make sure you have at least 2 table spoons of the juice and add in the mixer. Mix for 1 minute.
In a medium bowl, mix together the cake flour, coconut flour, baking powder, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, clove powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix for extra 2 minutes making sure it is no dry ingredients left on the sides of the bowl. In a small container add the pecans, the yellow raisins and the dried coconut than mix one table spoon of Coconut flour very well to these ingredients, that is to make sure that they get coated in flour to be distributed evenly in the bread, otherwise the could weight down in the loaf pan. Using a spatula fold it into the batter.
Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and If you want to do muffins I advise you to get a 12 Cup Muffin Pan
and ALWAYS use muffin papers . I was able to pour the batter into a Loaf pan and I had enough for 4 muffins. If you want to use this recipe exclusively for muffins might be good for 12 or more. Add the pumpkin seeds on top like I did but I believe it was TOO crunch, maybe poppy seeds or grape seeds might do tastier for kids. You can also add sanding sugar if you wish.
I added both trays in the oven than I baked for 20 minute the muffins, I removed from oven and I kept the big loaf for a complete 55 minutes and please make sure the toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean before you remove from the oven. Allow to cool down 15 minutes in a cool rack before removing the paper. I think it fits so well with goat cheese or cream cheese for breakfast specially with a good espresso or green tea! Enjoy!
