Amazing Pumpkin Bread

Ok, I think it's safe to say I found the most bad ass pumpkin bread recipe ever! I did break my favorite santoku knife while cutting the pumpkin so at least it was worth it, lol. I'll post the original recipe and note the changes I made at the bottom.

Pumpkin Bread

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
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

* I baked then mashed a fresh sugar pumpkin, please see directions below.
** I increased the flour amount by 1/4 C. due to high altitude.
*** I used 2 tsp. baking powder

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.**** In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended.
2. 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.

**** Please note: I don't have 7x3 pans so I used two 9x5 in. and increased the time to 65-75 minutes. The bread is very moist but the center should be set and not "goupy" before you remove it from the oven.

This is about the size of the pumpkin I used. I cut it in half, removed the stem, seeds and pulp, then wrapped the two halves separately in foil and baked at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. You'll have to wait until it's cooled completely before you can peel the skin off. After you've removed the cooked portion of the pumpkin, mash it. This pumpkin is also known as a "Pie Pumpkin" so you could see either or at the grocery store.