Pumpkin Bread à la Starbucks

A few weeks ago I met a friend at Starbucks while the kids were at school. I couldn't believe it when I saw her pay for her breakfast with a $10 bill and only get coins as her change. She had ordered a coffee and a slice of pumpkin bread! While I'm a frequent visitor, I have never ordered food there and was oblivious to those prices. I shared my amazement with her and she said she LOVED their pumpkin bread and had never found an equivalent. I promised her I would look for a recipe, so you can imagine how excited I was when I read Mellisa's post about pumpkin break her blog Until Wednesday Calls. She mentions that her recipe is better than Starbucks', so I had to try it.



My husband LOVES pumpkin bread as well and said this was the best he had ever had. I made a large loaf and several mini ones. The mini ones disappeared as soon as they came out of the oven and the large one didn't last much longer. I've made it for my friend several times and she LOVES it, as does another friend who used to buy it at her children's school for $5/loaf. I shared Melissa's recipe with her and told her she could easily make a couple of loaves for under that price.



I have since made it at least once a week for us, if not more. I have been using organic pureed canned pumpkin until today. I decided to try my hand with the pumpkins we picked at the pumpkin patch. I cut them in half and placed them cut-side down on a baking sheet with an inch of water. I baked them at 350 for an hour. I then scooped out the flesh and pureed it, along with some of the water in the pan, with my immersion blender. One small pumpkin and two tiny ones yielded about 4 cups of pumpkin puree or enough for 4 loaves. My husband and kids said it was as good as usual, they couldn't tell the difference. I have a medium pumpkin left so I'll use that for the next batch.

If you want to make this delicious bread (do it!) you can get the recipe here. Enjoy!!!

P.S. And this is what I did with the seeds... Sweet and Spicy Pumpkin Seeds.

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