Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Are you seeing a pumpkin theme? Using up some stuff from the freezer.

I thought that it would be nice to make some baked goods this weekend. Spouse and offspring made some cookies, and I got to thinking of pumpkin cream cheese bread. Which I've never made before.

So Google was such a help, and it popped up this almost 5-star recipe from allrecipes.com.

I am usually a bit horrified by quick bread recipes that I find on the internet or in most cookbooks such as Betty Crocker. This was no exception. If you look at the list of ingredients (which makes 2 loaves), it calls for 1 2/3 cup of flour and TWO FULL CUPS of sugar. More sugar than flour. That comes out to about 1 Tablespoon of sugar per SLICE (and these are small slices). I certainly don't think this falls into the healthy category of this blog.

So I pretty liberally adjusted the recipe like I normally do with quick breads. I cut the sugar down to about 1/2 cup plus two tablespoons (that's 10 tablespoons instead of 32!!). I also subbed some of the white flour for whole wheat. I often will decrease the oil and sub applesauce or more pumpkin. Didn't do that this time.

It was still quite tasty. But I took the bread out of the oven and took a nap. It fell a little, maybe because I left it in the pan too long.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread:

filling:
beat in a medium bowl:
1 8-oz package light cream cheese, softened: $1.25
2 Tbsp white sugar: 0.03
1 Tbsp flour: 0.01
1 egg: $0.13
1 Tbsp tangerine and/or orange zest (from our trees, I used a mixture): $0

dry ingredients:
mix in a medium bowl:
1 2/3 cup flour (I used a mix of white and wheat)
1 tsp baking soda: 0.02
1/2 tsp salt: 0.01
1/2 tsp cinnamon: 0.03
1/2 tsp cloves: 0.05
1/4 tsp nutmeg: 0.05
1/4 tsp ginger: 0.05

Wet ingredients:
Beat in a large bowl:
1 cup pumpkin puree: 0.50
1/2 cup canola oil: 0.28
2 eggs: 0.25
1/2 cup white sugar: 0.09

Total: $3.10 for two loaves of about 16 slices each, or about $0.10 per slice. Three slices with some fruit makes a good breakfast.

Preheat oven to 325.

Grease two small loaf pans.

Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just mixed.

Pour about half of the batter into the bottom of two pans and spread flat. Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top and spread a bit. Top with remaining batter.

Bake for 60 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.