Pumpkin Bread

For Pancake day, I made pumpkin bread alongside vegan pancakes with soya cream and rhubarb. My friend Natalie wanted to use up the remaining pumpkin cluttering her freezer and my taste buds were tingling for some pumpkin flesh.
I loosely followed a pumpkin bread recipe from my The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes book I got for Christmas. (Funny note the recipe was named Pumpkin Cinn-a-Zag Bread. Crazy huh?) It is supposed to be combination of cinnamon swirl and pumpkin bread.
This is the recipe:
Stuff yoo need to make it
. a mug and a 'alf of flour
. 3/4 mug of sugar ( make sure it is unrefined as caster is usually charred through animal bone! yikes
. 1 teaspoon then 'alf a teaspoon of baking soda/bicarbonate (same thing init)
. 2 tablespoons of cinnamon- just chuck as much as you like!
. 1 tablespoon of ginger or / and nutmeg! if you like your pumpkin bread flavoursome!
. Pinch of salt
. 1/4 mug of oil
. 3/4 mug of apple sauce (mine was from aldi and only 59p!
. 'alf a mug of soya milk
. 1/4 mug of brown sugaaaaa
. blended or canned or diced pumpkin. I left it quite chunky, which I felt added more flavour.

Preheat oven to 200C
Grease a loaf tin with greasy stuff( soy marg or oil)
In a bowl, mix flour, sugar and baking soda with wooden spoon.
Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, spices and salt. Slowly add the pumpkin, oil, apple sauce and milk.
In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.
Pour half the batter into the loaf pan and sprinkle with brown sugar mixture. Then pour other half of batter over. Draw a knife through the loaf to make a zig zag pattern (I didn't do this and now have no pumpkin left till October to try it out :()
Bake for 30-35 minutes, poking a sharp thing in to make sure insides are doughy! It may look done on the outside but sloppy inside takes longer. I sound ded clever.
Cool on a cooling rack, and enjoy!
I did find this VERY sweet, and thought this was more a cake than bread.
I'm going to try using yeast extract and wholemeal flour instead next time and making it like proper bread! Still keeping the sweet ingredients to epitomise the wondorous contrast of the sweet and savoury magic of PUMPKIN!

A collection of pumpkin related paraphernalia

The Pumpkin Eater

I am currently reading The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer. An excellent Christmas present from my very good bumblebee companion. It is not about pumpkins at all albeit the Pumpkin themed title, insinuating a pumpkin is to be consumed.There is an amazing nursery rhyme about pumpkins, oh and the cover is mostly orange. The story is about a women who is addicted to having children, and her coping mechanisms with dealing with a philandering husband. Maybe it is called The Pumpkin Eater, as eating pumpkins is a metaphor for addiction as her addiction to children is like my addiction to eating pumpkins!
The simply suggestive poetic lines really capture Mrs Armitage's collapsing world and fragility. The book has also been converted to screen by Harold Pinter.

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her.
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.

I love this poem, I like the light rhythm echoing a limerick style soft beat. Such a dainty metaphor for being entrapped inside a pumpkin!
Although I wouldn't complain!

Pumpkin Purchase

Oh where would you be without some pumpkin cut glasses to see?

Pumpkins: A lingustic comment

First of all the name of the Pumpkin is quite curious don't you think? It sounds ever so sweet :) Not only does it combine two words it rhymes with munchkin! :) The combination of the voiced bilabial plosives of /p/ and unvoiced plosive of /k/ create a distinct velar sound and pronuciation. (Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). It almost tingles your lips as you speak. When we say the word Pumpkin, we may be tempted to leave the second "p" out pronoucing it "pumkin" This is called an epenthetic sound which historically has no phonemic quality, but is pronounced anyway due to easy fludity when speaking. When referring to pumpkins people may even pronounce it "Punkin" How odd. But really people don't have time to pronounce all those breathtaking plosives, which stop the air flow completly from one's lungs. How tiring!By removing the bilabial plosive of /p/ to the veral nasal of /n/ it creates an easier spoken word but not as aesthetic don't you think? At university in a lingustic class I realised how hard it is actually to speak sometimes when we had to do an hour seminar on voicing out certain words, many with bilabial plosives! I was most exhausted afterwards and had to have a sit down and cup of tea to catch my breath from all that speaking.
So next time you say Pumpkin, please take your time and appreciate the quality of this fantastic word and dont miss out the second /p/!

Pumpkins

I daresay you may be wondering why I am devoting a whole blog to Pumpkins, but why ever not? This versatile fruit (yes fruit) can be used in many a dish either sweet or savoury in pie or not pie.
I am hoping to learn a lot more about this delectable fruit through this blog and tell you pumpkin munchkins all about it's amazing qualities and intriquing history. Whilst also I shall be presenting all the crazy and wonderful things you can make and do with pumpkins!
Fab, hey?
xx