Pumpkin Gingerbread Loaves with Lemon Icing

This is a fantastic recipe! Absolutely fantastic and wonderful for the holidays. It's really easy to put together - just mix everything in one bowl. Last year I found a recipe for pumpkin gingerbread online and kind of tweaked it to fit my taste. This is the result and it's lovely. The cake is not light & fluffy but not too dense either. It's so moist - I'm sure because of the oil - and very flavorful. I'm sure this cake would not be spicy enough for some gingerbread lovers but it was suited to my tastes. You can always go heavier on the spices. Of course the lemon icing really adds to the entire flavor of the bread. I wanted a really thick robe of icing on top. Almost so it adds a bit of light crunch when your teeth sink through the icing. This recipe does include a full small can of pumpkin, but I don't think the pumpkin flavor stands out that much. Probably just adds to the moistness.

I bet this bread would be wonderful & attractive with some tiny bits of candied ginger sprinkled on top of the still wet icing. I wanted mine to be nice, smooth & white.

Enjoy!




Pumpkin Gingerbread

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar 1 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs 1/3 cup water 1/3 cup mild molasses 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree 2 teaspoons ground ginger 1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease pans, line bottom with a strip of parchment. (I have nonstick loaf pans - I find that if I spray only the bottom with Pam and not the sides, I get a nicer dome on my loaves.)
2.	In a large mixing, combine sugar, oil and eggs; beat until smooth. Add water & molasses and beat until well blended. Stir in pumpkin, ginger, allspice cinnamon, and clove.
3.	In medium bowl, combine flour, soda, salt, and baking powder. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and blend just until all ingredients are mixed. Divide batter between prepared pans.
4.	Bake in preheated oven until toothpick comes out with moist crumbs attached. (I place all of my mini loaf pans on a very large cookie sheet before sliding into the oven. It helps move the loaf pans around easily and it also helps the bottom of the loaves not get too done. I do this with all of my cakes that I bake in loaf pans.) Cool a few minutes on a rack then pop loaves out of the pans to cool completely before icing.

Lemon Icing

I used a combination of lemon juice, powdered sugar & a bit a milk to adjust the consistencey. I made my icing really thick so it would thickly cover the entire loaf.