Pumpkin date bread with chocolate chips…in the bread machine!
You know what sucks about having a bread machine?
Nothing!
The only thing that could improve bread machine ownership is a greater abundance of trustworthy bread machine recipes. There are bread machine recipes to be had, but the sources are often dubious and reviews can be hard to come by, so it’s difficult to know whether you’ll end up with yummy bread or sad, dry punishment bread.
Are you ready? I am about to be the change I’d like to see on the Internet.
This is a recipe I found and tested from the Betty Crocker site. I didn’t alter much, outside of replacing “nuts” with “a boatload of chocolate and dates” and adding a pinch of freshly-grated ginger. Those changes affect the flavor of the bread, but not the chemistry of the recipe, so regardless of whether you follow the version below or the original, you will be safe. (I also arranged the ingredients in the manufacturer-recommended order for a Breadman machine, but I don’t think the order makes much difference when no yeast is involved.)
The bread turned out very, very moist, sweet-but-not-too-sweet, soft and comforting, with a subtle pumpkin-pie flavor. It holds up; after it sits for a day, it becomes more like bread and less like cake, and the crust becomes soft and sticky like banana bread.
If you put chocolate in your bread, wipe the knife frequently when you’re slicing it. Otherwise, chocolate stays on there and rips through the bread in a less-than-handsome way.
I hereby present this recipe to you not by way of taking credit for it, but of propagating a tested-and-it-totally-works bread machine recipe with a direct endorsement. You know what would be awesome? If everyone shared a trusted bread machine recipe that they’ve personally tested! You can post a link or a whole recipe in the comments if you want to, and then the rest of us will make that bread and think of you. Together, we can make the bread-machine-loving world a better place, one recipe at a time. Is anyone playing dramatic music right now? I think I need dramatic music so I can say that last part again.
I’ll wait.
Betty Crocker’s Bread Machine Pumpkin Spice Bread with Chocolate and Dates
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 pinch ground cloves
- 1 pinch freshly grated (or ground) ginger
- 1/2 cup chopped dates
- 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips/chunks
- Place all the ingredients into the pan of a bread machine in the order listed. (If the pan is not nonstick, grease it first.) Set bread machine to “quick bread” or “batter bread,” depending on your manufacturer. Go! [Note: The original recipe advises scraping down the sides of the pan after 3 minutes, but I did not find that necessary. Full disclosure, though: I did it anyway. I scraped all the nothing straight down into the batter with my spatula. I don’t know why.]
