Honey Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

Once upon a not so long ago time, Claire quite enjoyed eating pumpkin.  So when I spied a big lovely pumpkin at the farmer's market a few weeks back and asked the owner to sell it to me for half price (because it's February) and she agreed, I came home triumphantly thinking about all of the steamed pumpkin I was going to make for my baby girl, and how much she was going to love it.  Except for one small detail.  It seems she has changed her mind about pumpkin.  So, like anyone with too much already steamed and cubed pumpkin on their hands, I mashed it all up to make pumpkin bread.  Now, 5 loaves and a dozen muffins later, I'm thinking a little soup wouldn't have been a bad idea, but I don't really mind all of the pumpkin bread in the freezer.

I very fondly recall the pumpkin bread of my youth and after searching through many recipes online it was clear why.  A much more appropriate name for most of the pumpkin bread out there would be pumpkin cake.  Nearly every recipe I found called for equal parts white sugar and white flour. Now, I'm not saying that I wouldn't eat that pumpkin bread.... in fact I'm quite sure I'd eat it just fine.  However, knowing that Claire would likely be eating a fair amount of the bread as well I started my search for a slightly more wholesome recipe.  I found a few that were sweetened with honey and used whole wheat flour but wasn't thrilled with the results.  I changed a few things around here and there and the following recipe is what I came up with

Honey Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread
(makes one loaf or 10-12 muffins, depending on size)

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
3-4 TB oat bran
3-4 TB flaxseed meal
1 t cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp (heaping) cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4-1/3 c brown sugar
1/3 c coconut oil
1/3 c honey
1/3 c milk
1 1/4 c pureed pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2-1 c chopped walnuts or pecans

*preheat oven to 350F and grease loaf pan or muffin tin
*in a large bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients
*in another bowl, mix together all wet ingredients
*add wet mixture to flour mixture, stirring until combined, fold in nuts
*pour batter into loaf pan or muffin tin and bake until cooked through (toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean), about 45-50 minutes for loaves and about 20-25 minutes for muffins

*using coconut oil was a little tricky, but I preferred the end result with it compared to other oils I tried.  I warmed it up ahead of time, added it in liquid form and still had to put my smaller mixing bowl with the wet ingredients in a pan of simmering water to keep it (the coconut oil) from solidifying as I added cooler ingredients, such as the milk, egg, and pumpkin.  I suppose if you let those come to room temp first you may not have to worry about it.  Next time, I'll do that.