If you’re looking for something to bake this weekend, how about Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread?

“This pumpkin bread is autumn in loaf form,” says Pete & Gerry’s, fourth-generation family farmers of organic eggs (see more about them below).

“Like any quick bread, it comes together in a flash and stays tender and moist right out of the oven and beyond.”

The recipe lets you choose any and all mix-in ingredients, from chocolate chips of any and all colors, nuts, crystallized ginger, toffee chips, whatever!

The recipe says “optional,” but we say they’re “necessary.”

Serve the pumpkin bread for brunch, coffee break, or dessert—with an optional scoop of ice cream.
 
 
RECIPE: CHOCOLATE CHIP PUMPKIN BREAD

This recipe makes two loaves. You can freeze the second loaf if you don’t plan to use it within a few days.

Prep time is 10 minutes, cook time is 75 minutes.

Ingredients For 2 Loves

 
Preparation

1. PLACE the oven rack in the middle of oven and preheat to 350°F. Grease two 9” x 5” x 2.5” loaf pans, if using mix-ins. To make a plain loaf, 8” x 4” x 2.5” pans will work.

2. COMBINE all wet ingredients (pumpkin purée, melted butter, eggs, water, and vanilla) in a large bowl. Use a mixer on low speed until or whisk by hand until well blended. Then stir in both sugars until well combined.

3. MIX together in a separate bowl the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until the batter is well combined and smooth.

4. ADD the mix-ins, and stir until evenly distributed. Divide the mixture equally between the two loaf pans, and shake the pans to roughly level out the batter.

5. BAKE the loaves for 60-75 minutes, gently rotating the pans in the oven halfway through baking. The loaves are ready when the top cracks, the surface feels firm and set, and a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. (If the top begins to get too dark during baking, you can carefully tent it with foil to prevent further browning).

6. REMOVE the loaves from the oven, and allow them to cool for at least 15 minutes before turning them out on a wire rack to cool to room temperature.
 
 
ABOUT PETE & GERRY’S ORGANIC EGGS

Should your eggs come from small family farms, or from faceless factory farms?

With the news coverage of recent years about the horrible lives lived by caged hens, or even “cage free” hens crammed onto barn floors, so crowded that they can’t move, we switched to humanely produced eggs.

Pete & Gerry’s have been selling high-quality organic eggs for more than 60 years.

As pioneers of humane and environmentally sustainable egg production, Pete & Gerry’s produced many of the first organic and free-range eggs available in supermarkets. They were the first Certified Humane egg farm in the country.

The hens, and their eggs, are free of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, GMO feed or animal byproducts. So these eggs not only taste good: They make you feel good. No hens were mistreated.
 
Discover more at PeteAndGerrys.com.
 
 
> CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF EGGS. How many have you had?

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*Be sure to use pumpkin purée and not pumpkin pie filling, which contains added seasonings.

You can substitute another oil—coconut, corn, grapeseed or vegetable—if you prefer.

[1] Add chocolate chips and anything else you like to this pumpkin bread (photo © Pete & Gerry’s Eggs).

[2] You can use dark, milk or white chocolate chips, or a combination (photo © Bella Baker).

[3] If you want to add nuts, our favorite for this recipes is pecans (photo © American Pecan Council).

[4] Don’t want mix-ins? Bake a plain loaf (photo © Levain Bakery).

[5] Want to dress up a plain loaf? Add a meringue topping (photo © Tartine Bakery).