It's That Time Of Year!!! (Pumpkin Bread & Caramel Sauce Recipe)

     It's that time of year for pumpkin EVERYTHING to start filling us up. Whether it be your Venti PSL from Starbucks, your homemade pumpkin rolls or even if you're just excited for the leaves to change color, then you're right with me. You'll come to find out that I love to cook and I especially love to bake. I'm big on baking from scratch and tweaking recipes, to make them just right, for myself and my husband. (We can both be picky...)

     Anyhow, I decided last night to attempt some homemade pumpkin bread along with some homemade caramel sauce. They turned out, AMAZING. I got the recipe from a family member, and she got the original recipe here. Mine is different, because I did tweak it a tiny bit. The nice thing about this one, is the fact that it's pretty easy to substitute things and sneak in other things such as veggies or some nuts. My ladies out there might want to even add some chocolate chips in there, because who doesn't love chocolate? :)

The ingredients in the recipe that I specifically used, are below.

Ingredients:
1 (15 oz.) can Libby's Pumpkin Puree
4 large eggs
1 C Applesauce (instead of the vegetable oil)
2/3 C Water
2 Teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract
2 1/2 Cups Sugar
3 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
1 Teaspoons Table Salt (instead of 1 1/2 tsp Kosher Salt)
2 Tablespoons Pumpkin Pie Spice (Found with the spices at most grocery stores)
3/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon

     Instead of using the loaf pan size of 8.5 x 4 x 2.5, I bought a 5 pack of the SMALL (not large or mini!!) loaf pans at the Wegman's and it was a perfect number of pans for the amount of batter that I had. To prepare the pans, all I did was lightly grease and flour them, then I set them aside. The rest of the directions are as follows:


Directions:
Prep: Grease & Flour loaf pans!!!
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2) In a large mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, or a hand whisk(I used a hand whisk and it turned out fine), combine pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water, vanilla and sugar until well blended.
3)In another large bowl, whisk/stir together the flour, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice until well combined.
4) Stir/Whisk the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until blended, with no chunks of dry ingredient left.
5) Pour batter into the prepared loaf pans.
6) Bake in oven (previously preheated to 350) for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
7) Carefully remove from oven, let cool and enjoy!!!

Now, for the caramel sauce....

It takes a while and it takes some patience... I've burnt it several times from not keeping a close eye on it.

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons butter (Salted)
1/2 C Sugar
1/2 C Heavy Whipping Cream

Directions:
1) Take a medium sized sauce pan and put it on the stove, over medium heat. Add the butter and sugar.
2) As the butter melts, add the 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream and stir in.
3) Stir every few minutes.
It will bubble and reduce by about 25%, and change to a lighter brown color.
***If it gets too thick, add another tablespoon of heavy cream, as needed!!!***

     Now, the finished product...
     I put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of my slice of pumpkin loaf, and then drizzled the caramel on top, straight out of the medium saucepan. The loaf, I just popped in the microwave for a few seconds to make it nice and warm. Best fall dessert, EVER :).

That's all for now, I hope you enjoy :)

    xoxo Taylor