le fleur d'Pumpkin

Last week I had a WHOLE day off of work. I was ubber productive in my cooking - possibly to the point of manic. For part of the day I went and cooked with my friend in the ward, and after much indecision on both our parts (we decided that one of us needed to be decisive, and then couldn't decide who), EC finally helped us decide what to make. So, I lugged all of my stuff up to my friend's house and spent a wonderful afternoon hanging out and cooking. This was the first thing that we baked - Spiced Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Layer. Unfortunately, I realized after we had decided that you made them in mini loaf pans, not normal loaf pans. Fortunately, my friend was brilliant enough to suggest that we use her bundt pan (which was nice and floral) and it turned out beautiful and amazing.

Pumpkin Spice Bread with Cheesecake Layer
Adapted From: Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Cheesecake Layer:

9 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

¼ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

1 TBSP all-purpose flour

1 large egg

Pumpkin Spice Bread:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground ginger

¼ tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1 cup pumpkin puree(plain, not the already made pumpkin pie kind)

½ cup canola oil

2 large eggs

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 325F.

Lightly grease and flour three mini loaf pans (or a bundt pan, in my case). In a medium mixing bowl, combine all the cheesecake ingredients; beat until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Set aside.

In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and spices; set aside.Place pumpkin puree, vegetable oil, eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl of an electric stand mixer. Using the paddle attachment, beat for about 1 minute, until fully combined.

Add flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture and mix just until combined.Pour half of the pumpkin bread batter evenly into the three prepared loaf pans. Spoon cream cheese mixture on top of pumpkin batter layer and then pour on the remaining pumpkin batter.

Bake in preheated 325 oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

Cool bread in pans for 10 minutes.

Remove bread from pans and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Serve at room temperature or cool.