This is my potluck go to. At a time that you maybe thinking “What should I bring?” I thought I’d share mine. It’s easyish and damn tasty. It’s just unusual enough to feel a little special. I also chose it because I could bike with it.

I combined Cook’s Illustrated Really Good Pumpkin Bread in Sep/Oct 2012 with flavor tips from Overhauling Gingerbread Cake in Jan/Feb 2011. I’ve made my version a handful of times now so I hope I have a set recipe by now. I’ll do my best to share it. Give it a try and tell me how it works for you!

Ingredients:

1c Pumpkin
3T fresh ginger grated. I just eyeball this.
1t salt
1t cinnamon
1/2t nutmeg (I just grate about 1/2 of a nut)

4oz cream cheese
1c light brown sugar
1c white sugar
1c oil (something flavorless)
1/4 milk
4 eggs

2 3/4c all purpose flour
1 1/2t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1c crystalized ginger (in smallish chunks)
2t ginger powder

1 10oz bag of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao bittersweet Chocolate (Trust me it’s worth it)

Pre-heat oven to 350
Prepare loaf pans (butter and flour as needed)

In a sauce pan, heat on medium the first 5 items. First the pumpkin will be chunky and watery. Keep stirring for 5ish minutes until it is smooth thick and yummy smelling. Turn off the heat. Add the cream cheese, stir. Add the sugars. Stir well. Make sure it’s not still hot. Add the oil, milk, and eggs. Stir until well combined.

It was quite a bit darker until the milk and eggs went in. The white bits are not quite melted cream cheese.

In a large bowl combine the 5 items before the chocolate. Mix well.

Flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger powder, and crystalized ginger

Add the pumpkin mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until there are no dry flour pockets (don’t over stir, don’t under stir).

Pour batter into pans.
Bake for 45-50min until toothpick comes out almost clean.
Cool for at least 30 min before removing from tins. In my experience it’s closer to an hour.

Microwave about 3/4 of the dark chocolate bag, saving some for snacking 🙂 in 1 min increments until just melted. Drizzle, paint, glop, whatever you like on top. Let cool (this is the part that tries my patience) and package as you like. I plop them back in to their tins for crush free transportation in my back pack.