Smells like Christmas...

Wow!  Once I realized I needed coffee and actually got some, the evening went much better! 

We went over to a friends house who reminded me about the recipe we discussed the other day, an old favorite of mine ~ Smells Like Christmas Pumpkin Bread.  We laughed at how it calls for 5 whole eggs, 1 whole cup of oil, and 3 - yes- THREE whole cups of SUGAR!!!!  She said it still sounded wonderful and bets her friend could clean it up a bit.  Well tonight, after I got home, I felt like baking.  I wanted to try Kathi's black bean hummus but realized I didn't have corriander - something I thought I've always had.  So I decided to make the SLCPB, but experiment in cleaning it up.

Here is the original recipe:

3.5 cups sifted all purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

1.5 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp allspice

.5 tsp ground cloves

3 cups sugar

2/3 cup water

1 cup oil

5 eggs - beaten

1 sixteen oz can pumpkin

So I did some substitutions:

whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour

sea salt instead of regular salt

2 cups sugar rather than 3 (still needs to be altered better)

extra virgin olive oil rather than plain oil

4 cups cinnamon apple sauce, 1 tbsp ground flax seed, 3 tbsp water rather than 5 eggs

I was really concerned about the consistancy and taste and well...just about everything. 

When I've substituted whole wheat flour in past recipes, it didn't turn out well ~ very dry.  And if there is one thing I don't like, it's dry muffins!

I added the rich orange pumpkin in and things started to color up and change up!

Ahhh, much better!!!  And the applesauce/flaxseed/water combination really made a difference.  This was starting to look more like my original recipe now.  So I stuck a clean finger in to sample the batter - YUCK!!!!  I hadn't added the sugar yet!  Blah!  Recipe called for 3 cups of sugar, but man that seemed like an awful lot.  And I could just hear Tosca in the back of mind - IT'S POISON AND SHOULDN'T BE LEGAL!!!  So I cut it down to 2 cups only because I didn't know what else to substitute other than more and more apple sauce!

This recipe makes 2 loaves of SMLCB but I always forget my old loaf pan (about 4 or 5 years ago) was falling apart and I threw it away.  So I thought, hmmmmm, lets make mini-loaves and muffins!!!

The muffins look wonderful don't they?  Look at that glisten on the top!  I just love the red cup paper, too!  Got milk?!

And the mini-loaves turned out beautifully!  I really need to get more of these cuz three is not enough!

The finished product!  I just love all the red and even the green from the cookie jar!  It looks like Christmas and the entire house SMELLS like Christmas!  It is wonderful!!!

I'm going to pack a muffin in hubby's lunch for tomorrow with a side of yogurt butter!  What a great treat!  And I can hardly wait to enjoy a loaf with the kids when we wake up in the morning and to share this with Phyllis.
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Okay I just had to go OCD and find out all the nutritional info on the original recipe and then on my cleaned up recipe. 
Key: O=original N=cleaned up

Calories:  O=265 N=229
Total Fat: O= 10.3g N=9.4g
   Saturated: O=1.6g N=1.4g
Cholesterol: O=39 N= ZERO!!!!
Sodium: O=266 N=224g
Carbs: O=40.9 N= 34.9
  Dietary Fiber: O=1.2g N=1.5g
Sugars: O=25.8g N= 19.3
Protein: O=3.3g N=2.2g
Vit A: O=60% N=59%
Calcium: O=3% N=2%
Vit C: both = 1%
Iron: both=7%

So in conclusion, this is not an every day treat!  Normally, I make this only once at Christmas-time.  But it was interesting, for me, to see if I knew what substitutions to make and how they would taste.