I’m neither a big breakfast eater nor a frequent baker, but on lazy holidays (and regular lazy weekends) I do love to nibble on a cakey bread with my morning coffee.
The sight of an unused post-Thanksgiving can of pumpkin purée in our pantry and a recipe in Karen DeMasco’s 2009 book The Craft of Baking inspired this one, which we’ve been enjoying since Christmas morning. (Damn — it’s almost gone!)
DeMasco, in case you don’t know her, was the opening pastry chef at Tom Colicchio’s Craft in New York, as well as at Craftbar and ’wichcraft; she won the James Beard Award in 2005 for Outstanding Pastry Chef. “It is great toasted and spread with a thick pat of nice salty butter,” she wrote in the headnote. We didn’t get that far at our house: Each slice has gotten quickly gobbled.
Our version is slightly different than DeMasco’s original. I’m always looking for ways to use more whole grains, so I thought I’d try subbing out half the white flour in her recipe for whole-wheat flour. (It worked!) I also cut the white sugar by half, from 1/2 cup to 1/4 cup, suspecting that with the 1/2 cup of brown sugar also called for, it would be sweet enough. (It was!) And finally, I added freshly ground cardamom into DeMasco’s pumpkin spice mix — probably because cardamom always seems so alluring this time of year. (And anytime, really!) Success again — it added something aromatically delightful.
The result is lush, moist, warmly spicy and delicious. The whole wheat flour adds a wee bit of wholesomeness without turning the bread cardboardy or punitive; and even with the reduced sugar, it was definitely sweet enough for Thierry (who has been been successfully taming his sweet tooth), and of course sweet enough for me. A touch of turbinado or demerara sugar sprinkled on top before baking gave it a light sugary crunch (I cut that by a third as well). Best of all, it’s a snap to make.
We’ve enjoyed this cakey bread so much, I’ll be keeping cans of pumpkin purée in the pantry well into the winter. Hope you like it too!