The BEST Pumpkin Bread Ever

Yummy, nutty pumpkin bread.

It's been a cool, wet September weekend--the perfect time to start making pumpkin bread. I happened upon this recipe a few years ago, and now it's the only one I use. The bread is sweet, spicy, nutty, and perfectly textured. I butter and flour the pans, so there's a nice saltiness to the "crust." It freezes amazingly well, so one batch can last a couple of weeks.  
This recipe comes from allrecipes.com and is called Down East Maine Pumpkin Bread. I changed it a little bit by replacing some of the white sugar with brown sugar and also adding nuts. The original recipe calls for three 7x3 inch pans, which seems like an odd size. All I know is "loaf pan" and "mini loaf pan."  What I do us use two mini loaf pans (3 1/4 x 6 inches)  and two slightly larger than mini pans (4 x 8 inches).  I think two regulation size loaf pans would do the job, though, and then you'd need to adjust the baking time to account for the larger loaves.

Pumpkin Bread
     --Adapted from allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS 

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
• 3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans and/or walnuts

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. 
3. 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. Fold in the nuts.  Pour into the prepared pans.
4. Bake for about 45-55 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Wrap and freeze what you won't eat in two days.

Makes three medium loaves