First Day of Fall Recipe: Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

It is officially Fall! I am so excited. The weather is going to start getting cooler, the nights will be longer, the trees will begin to change and I get to bust out my favorite scarves! Not to mention it is now holiday baking season. Since today is the first day of Autumn, I figured I would celebrate by giving you all a wonderful recipe that's perfect for today and the next few months. This is a recipe I found in my fabulous William's Sonoma cookbooks, which have made my holiday cooking such a breeze. Enjoy it!

Whole-Wheat Pumpkin Bread

350 degrees

1 hour

Makes 2 medium loaves

What You'll Need:

• 2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1/2 cup yellow or white cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups mashed cooked pumpkin or canned pumpkin
• 4 eggs
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

How to Make It:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pans and dust them with flour.
2. In a bowl, stir together the flour, cornmeal, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until well blended; a hand-held mixer is useful for this step. Beat in the pumpkin, eggs and water until completely mixed. Add the combined dry ingredients and stir just until blended. Stir in the raisins and nuts.
3. Pour and scrape the batter into the 2 prepared pans and spread evenly. Bake until a thin wooden skewer inserted into the center of the loaves comes out clean, about 1 hour. Allow to cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely.