Spiced Pumpkin Bread

Spiced Pumpkin Bread
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Old-Fashioned Home Baking

I love this time of year, excuse to use loads of pumpkin. That is, in my case, butternut squash, since I'm a big cheat. However, I still believe firmly that it tastes nicer than pumpkin. This makes 1 ring of bread (bundt pan) or two loaves.

Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour (the original recipe uses all white flour)
1/4 cup wheat germ (you can omit this if you want or don't have it)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon (shoulda added more)
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup pumpkin/butternut squash fresh or canned puree
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs (I used 3 medium eggs)
1/3 cup shortening (I suppose you could use butter if you wanted to)

1 cup of either dried berries, nuts, raisins, or seeds like pepitas (I used a prepacked mix of sunflower seeds, pepitas, cranberries and goji berries from Aldi)

Directions

Preheat oven to 175C/350F

In a mixing bowl (or the bowl of your mixer) mixed half the flour (1/2 cup WW flour, 1/2 cup AP flour), baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices.

Add pumpkin, milk, eggs, vanilla and shortening. Use mixer and beat 30 seconds to mix and a couple minutes on high.
Stir in nuts/seeds/dried fruit.

Bake for 1 hour for a ring mold/bundt like I used, or 45 minutes for two loaf pans.

You can make a glaze with a bit of powdered sugar and water, and a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, or just do what I plan to do, which is slice it up and smear it with butter or cream cheese. I plan on making french toast with a few slices for my breakfast, yum!