Thursday, October 18, 2012

Decadent Chocolate & Pumpkin Bread

I love the idea for tonight's kitchen experimentation.  Partly because it is delicious, and partly because I made up the recipe for chocolate bread on my own.  No internet recipe contribution, just my brain and I.


I'm not a fan of cold weather.  I would be perfectly happy if it could be 70+, or even 80+ degrees all year round.  But that doesn't mean I dislike autumn.  The scenery is gorgeous, and the food is pretty good too.  My favorite parts of autumn: apple cider and pumpkin everything.

I've been looking forward to pumpkin bread for awhile now, but I didn't just want to make pumpkin bread; I wanted to make something new and exciting. I wanted to make pumpkin bread layered with chocolate bread.  In order to do this, I needed to come up with a chocolate bread recipe.

I skimmed through my blog archives, and it appears that I have never actually put my pumpkin bread recipe on here.  Tragic.  (Of course it's possible it is there and I just didn't find it)  But just in case, I'll list it here.  And later I will make a post devoted to pumpkin bread.

This evening, I made a batch of pumpkin bread, and also made a bunch of chocolate bread, which I made up on the spot.  And then I layered them in a loaf of breakfast bread and a bunch of muffins.  Breakfast for the next week is going to be awesome.

Pumpkin Bread Recipe
1 c pumpkin
1 stick butter
2 eggs
3/4 c brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 stp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 1/4 c flour
chocolate chips

Chocolate Bread Recipe
1 square baking chocolate
1/2 stick butter
1 egg
1/4 c apple cider
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
3/8 c brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c wheat flour
1/2 c flour
walnuts

I've been thinking about this bread for quite a few days now.  I bought the canned pumpkin when I went grocery shopping over the weekend, and have been itching to make pumpkin bread ever since.  But I didn't want to just make pumpkin bread this time.  

A day or two ago, I decided that I wanted to make a layered chocolate/pumpkin bread.  But I had no idea how to make a chocolate bread.  I looked on google today, but didn't like anything that I saw.  So I decided to wing it (my favorite thing to do while playing in the kitchen!).  Throughout the day today, various ideas flew through my head.  I was thinking about using cocoa powder with a breakfast bread recipe to somehow come up with a chocolate bread that didn't involve yeast (the recipes I found online involved yeast).  Then, shortly before I started baking, I remembered that I had some squares of baker's chocolate in my cupboard.  And I realized that baker's chocolate would probably produce a much better flavor than cocoa powder. 
I was thinking about using 2 squares, but I discovered that I had a box with one square left in it.  (I also had an unopened box, but I'll save that for brownies).  

I also wanted to use cider somehow, so I threw some cider into the recipe.  I actually used my banana bread recipe for the chocolate bread, but substituted a square of baking chocolate and a 1/4 c of cider for the 2 bananas, and added cinnamon.  

The Making of the Chocolate & Pumpkin Breads
making both breads at once

adding the apple cider

adding the brown sugar to the pumpkin bread

mmm cinnamon

decadence in the making




I didn't measure the walnuts...but here's what it looked like
before I stirred them in

pumpkin batter, chocolate batter, more pumpkin batter

pumpkin batter, then chocolate batter




Decadent.  Delicious.  


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