Pumpkin Breads ~ Squirrely Little Pans

The first week of Fall is really here! And it seems like it's been a horribly long Summer! Especially since we live in the desert - Hot desert I should say!
What better way to celebrate (the weather throwing hints anyway) that cooler days are upon us than to bake up some yummies!

I found this recipe on All Recipes. It's called Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread! Submitted by Laurie Bennett who states: "This is a great old Maine recipe, moist and spicy. The bread actually tastes even better the day after it is baked. Great for holiday gift giving!"

INGREDIENTS

* 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
* 4 eggs
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 2/3 cup water
* 3 cups white sugar
* 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (I used All Spice instead)
* 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

The loaf pans I used are small so I baked them for 30 minutes then rotated them in the oven and covered them loosely with foil. I think I baked them another 10 minutes and then turned out perfect!

Barbadian Pound Cake Turned Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Shortcake
Originally uploaded by Gigi & Big Red

As promised! Here's the finished product! It's amazing how much real whipped cream vs. canned can make or break a dessert!

Ingredients for Barbadian Pound Cake

Ingredients for Barbadian Pound Cake
Originally uploaded by Gigi & Big Red

I found this recipe online from Bernadette Beekman

She is quoted as saying:

"My grandmother, Gladys Payne Gittens, came here from Barbados about 1906. She read this to me over the phone when I was in law school in 1978. Thanks to my friend Elayne, the Soulful Yenta, to whom I gave a copy, I was able to find this on Mother's Day. It's a great simple pound cake, good with tea."

INGREDIENTS

* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 2 cups butter
* 4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 4 eggs
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 1 tablespoon almond extract
* 2 cups milk

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Lightly grease and flour one 9 or 10 inch bundt pan.
2. By hand with a spatula cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs all at once and beat well.
3. Sift the flour and the baking powder together. Add to butter mixture along with 1 cup of the milk. Continue to beat well (the batter will be doughy). Add the remaining 1 cup of milk along with the vanilla, and almond extracts. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
4. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 1 hour. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and continue baking for 15 minutes longer.

Note from Gigi: it seems my oven has a mind of it's own so I was a little worried about over baking it at such a high temperature. i did cover it with foil the last 10 minutes or so.

But it turned out delightful! Very moist!

Big Red's 34th Birthday coming up!

Well how sad is it that I haven't blogged in a year! Whoops! Hubby's birthday is in a couple of days! This year he requested strawberry shortcake! Sounds delicious and easy enough to make! I promise to post pics of the "real" delectable fruity goodness soon! For now I leave you with a picture of my newest obsession Re-Ment. These are Japanese miniatures - so life like! So real! It's hard not to get hungry when I'm playing around with my stash! The detail is amazing as you can see!!!

Big Red's 33rd Birthday!

We don't have a Sprinkles Cupcake Shop close to us here in Tucson so I went to Williams Sonoma and bought the DIY cupcake kit : ) They turned out lovely but were extremely rich. There's 3 sticks of butter in 12 cupcakes! Yikes! I love the look of them probably a little more than the taste. When I bake my own cupcakes they're usually much lighter and make me feel way less guilty : )

A Bit Behind Schedule

I'm just now getting around to posting a mosaic of all my baking for February! The sadest thing is that March's baking journal is sparse and lonely. I haven't had much time to spend in the kitchen these past five weeks....but it's been a good trade off. It's not that I haven't been creative ~ just into a different medium these days...polymer clay. The opening of my etsy shop has been life changing.

But enough about that and back to baking! February 17th was my birthday and I always love to bake up a storm right around then so here's a few of the things I baked up for my birthday month.

I actually had a hankering for cupcakes last night and whipped up a batch! I'll post pics soon!

Welcome to the Circus!

Busy today baking fun whimsical creations! I'm always inspired this time of year because my birthday is right around the corner. The wooden animal candle holders are from my 5th birthday! They are still in very good condition ~ my mom gave them to me a few years ago as a birthday gift : )