Biscoff Pumpkin Bread

I'm clearly not over Pumpkin Season yet. I think this song sums up our current relationship status rather nicely.

"I'm not over 
I'm not over you just yet
Cannot hide it
You're not that easy to forget 
I'm not over..." 

Seriously though, I know we're well into December and the pumpkin season has come and gone, but I cannot be the only one with cans of pumpkin leftover from those feverishly pumpkin-addled fall months, can I? So, in the spirit of cleaning out our cupboards to make room for holiday-themed ingredients like Ghiradelli peppermint bark, Hershey's kisses, and enough butter, flour, and sugar to bake for an army of college boys freshly home for the holidays and hungering for some good 'ole homemade Christmas cookies, let's put those leftover cans of perfectly good and still-delicious pumpkin to good use, shall we?

We shall.

Winter Break is fast (though not quite fast enough!) approaching, and though I always look forward to going home for the holidays, this year is a little bit different because I won't be coming back afterward. I'll be going to London! I'm spending my spring semester this year studying abroad in London, and I could not be more excited (or nervous!).

Unfortunately, what that means is that when I pack to go home for Christmas, I won't be just packing a suitcase... I'll be packing everything. So in an effort to reduce (however slightly) the amount of things I will be clogging our car with come December 18th, I thought I would try to finish some of my half-used or leftover ingredients. This recipe efficiently takes care of: 1 can of pumpkin, the last vestiges of a jar of Trader Joe's Speculoos cookie spread, and 1 mostly empty bag of mini chocolate chips.

Just look at them glisten... like litte chocolatey christmas lights ;)

Those of you familiar with cookie spread, don't expect this bread's flavor to taste like equal parts pumpkin and Biscoff. The Biscoff flavor is on the subtle side of things. The flavor came out more strongly in the dough (dough? batter? not sure which term is more accurate for quick breads... it's not quite as solid as true bread dough, but it's not as runny as cake batter, either...), but it still adds a nice kind of subtle extra boost of sweetness to this bread (which really isn't ALL that sweet by itself).

I had a little leftover Biscoff afterward, so I decided to swirl some in to the surface of the bread. I recommend that you do this, because the spoonfuls of Biscoff (I'm not very good at swirling, so my attempts usually end up more like lumps than swirls) sank into the bread and got weird in a very melty, surprise-pockets-of-sweetness manner that I am all in favor of.

Observe:

Like I said, I also had some spare mini chocolate chips that I wanted to use up, so I sprinkled them on top.

... I recommend this, too.

I mean, you can't really go wrong with a little extra chocolate. "I sure wish we hadn't added chocolate to this." - Said No One, Ever

I wouldn't go so far as to say this bread is healthy - you should probably still leave room for your daily allotment of fruits and vegetables - but it packs much less of a nutritional wallop than many quick breads do. If you look carefully at the recipe, you will notice that there is no butter or oil! They are swapped out for applesauce and water and a liberal quantity of pumpkin. Plus, if you choose to use whole wheat or white whole wheat flour as I did, you can count it as one of your daily servings of whole grains! You could do a lot worse.

This bread has just enough sweetness to make it a good dessert, but it's not so over the top that you couldn't get away with having some for a snack. Or breakfast. Or instead of choosing, you could just have a slice for each ;)

- Molly

Biscoff Swirl Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from Love From The Oven 
Makes one loaf

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups White Whole Wheat Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
½ tsp Baking Powder
1 tbsp Cinnamon
1 tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
¼ – ½ tsbp Salt
heaping 1/3 cup white sugar
heaping 1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cups Canned Pumpkin
1/3 cup Applesauce (I didn't have any applesauce so I used greek yogurt instead, and that seemed to work fine, too!)
1/4 cup Biscoff Spread
1/3 cup water
1 tsp vanilla
1 Egg
1 Egg Whites

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Grease loaf pan or line with parchment paper.

Combine all dry ingredients in bowl and stir to combine.

Combine all wet ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine.

Mix wet and dry ingredients until combined - do not over-mix.

Pour mixture into two loaf pans that have been sprayed with cooking spray.

Bake for approx 50-65 minutes or until knife inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.