The Breakfast Serial #29: Spicy Pumpkin Bread

The Heresy of Thieves is one month old today! Reviewers are calling the beginning of my Spellfall saga "unapologetically queer" and "everything I've ever wanted in epic fantasy." It's dark and twisted with a ferocious heart. Have you picked up a copy yet? If not, order now from these fine booksellers. If you've read it, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads or Amazon! Reader reviews & word of mouth are how indie books live or die. And I want my precious trainwrecks to LIVE!

Previous Breakfast Serial: granola & potentially sentient trees

Unlike the murmurtrees, with their delicious sap and the endless chatter rustling in their leaves, our velvet-leaf shimhorn trees make no noise above ground. They have lured none of us further into the woods alone in pursuit of any conversation. Rather, they seem to be talking to one another without a care for any of us wiggly weird mammals poking around their trunks. We spend a lot of our work time poking around their trunks.

The granola I gifted the team each morning with our coffee was largely well-received, though some on the team did note it was not quite necessary for the team's chronicler to also be our camp cook for every meal. We follow a strict turn order to split the labor amongst all, and I potentially put a few people out by circumventing their turn at breakfast with a convenient option that let everyone get back into the field sooner. I promised myself that I would not prepare any further breakfasts (or meals of any kind) for the team until it was my turn again, and I made sure to thank each of them for their contributions as they came to the table.

It turned out that this, of all things, was the way to winning Dr. Aspen over. He made us a breakfast casserole that was shockingly good, so much so that I begged the recipe from him. He hasn't parted with it yet, but it gave him the opening to launch into a story about life back home, out in the deserts of New Mexico. By the time we were cleaned up and ready to head out, Dr. Aspen was beaming from the warmth of recollection. It's an important note for me to keep in mind: we all have recipes to share, and we're all a long way from our home world here. I hope to collect many such recipes from my fellow Ocastans as time allows, and I hope Dr. Aspen will be my first contributor.

For you all today, I have a pumpkin bread that's more heavily spiced than most. My grandfather used to tell me of the time he visited New York City and went to a bakery famous for its cookies. He spotted a pumpkin loaf on the trays that was so huge, each slice could easily feed two. By my grandfather's telling, it was richer and more warmly spiced than any pumpkin loaf he had ever had, and it set him on a quest to recreate it at home.

He never did, and I never had the original, but here's my attempt to recreate it from the memory of his stories of his autumn visit to New York. It's my turn to make camp breakfast tomorrow, and I hope to share his story with my teammates over thick slices of this bread.

GINGERY PUMPKIN BREAD

originally adapted from Smitten Kitchen and hints from bakers at Levain bakery in NYC

Ingredients

• 1 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree (or 15 ounces of pumpkin puree)
• 1/4 cup melted butter mixed with 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup granulated white sugar
• 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp fine salt
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard powder
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

For the topping:

• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp each: cinnamon, ginger, cardamom

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. Butter a 6-cup loaf pan and make a parchment paper sling to fit inside and over the edges (the paper is optional, but it makes it much easier to get this chonk out of the pan later)
3. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, oil/butter combo, eggs, and sugar.
4. In a tiny bowl, mix together the baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and mustard powder. Sprinkle this mixture over the pumpkin mix in the large bowl and whisk to combine.
5. Add the flour and fold in with a spoon until just mixed.
6. Pour into prepared pan, spread the batter out evenly, then sprinkle the sugar-spice topping all over the top.
7. Bake 70-80 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.
8. Cool the bread in the pan for at least 10 minutes, then remove it to cool the rest of the way on a rack.