I’ve been feeling a little bit under the weather lately and so I’ve been cooking more to make myself feel more ‘at home’. We made corned beef, eggs, and garlic fried rice on Sunday for breakfast (a typical Filipino breakfast that my mom would cook on weekends), and this week we’ve eaten Sinigang twice. Now that it’s fall, I’ve been having some serious pumpkin cravings. Today, I went to the store and picked up some spices and a big chunk of kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) and baked pumpkin bread, for the first time in my life!

First, I had to make pumpkin puree, or kabocha puree, rather.

I followed the instructions on The Pioneer Woman, which were really easy. Basically, first I scooped out the seeds and stringy stuff, setting the seeds aside as she suggested to make roasted pumpkin seeds. That will be tomorrow’s task! I set the chunk of kabocha face up on a piece of foil in the microwave/toaster-oven/oven combo at 180°C for about 45 minutes, then I peeled the skin, chopped it up and threw it into a blender with a bit of water to make the puree. The result was about 1 1/4 cup of kabocha puree.

As for the recipe, I roughly followed the Pumpkin Bread Recipe from Simply Recipes, but made some modifications. Below is the recipe I used with the modifications:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3/4 cup brown sugar*
1 tbsp baking powder*
1 1/4 cup pumpkin purée*
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 tbsp nutmeg
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tbsp allspice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

I actually couldn’t find baking soda at my supermarket, so I used baking powder instead and threw in a little extra than the recipe called for; I used more kabocha puree than called for because I didn’t want to bother freezing or throwing away 1/4 cup of puree; and I used brown sugar instead of white sugar because another recipe suggested to do that, and I happily found brown sugar. Also, I increased the spices to 1/2 tbsp instead of 1/2 tsp… although honestly, I don’t have measuring teaspoons or tablespoons in my apartment here, so I just kind of eyeballed it, and then sprinked in more cinnamon.

The finished product came out delicious, but I still want a stronger cinnamon taste so next time, I may add more spices.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
2. Mix the kabocha, oil, eggs, water, and spices together, then combine with the dry ingredients, but do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in the nuts.
3. Pour into a well-buttered 8×8 baking dish. Bake for 60-70 minutes (time adjusted for my Japanese microwave/toaster-oven/oven combo) until a thin skewer poked in the very center of the loaf comes out clean.
4. Let cool and serve!

Nom nom nom… my apartment smells like kabocha, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and I am so happy. I cut a few pieces to give away, and froze half of my share to enjoy later this fall, closer to Thanksgiving. The bread is really thick and filling, so the boy and I can only eat a little bit. I think I’ll need to stock up on some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream to go with it. ^^;;;