Gluten-Free Pumpkin Carrot Bread

I made my favorite pumpkin bread for our church harvest party yesterday, and won third place in the bread category!

Third Place Winner

I label my bread, Gluten-free, Dairy-Free, Nut-Free, and I'm afraid people will see that and think it's some kind of weird health food thing, but it flies off the plate anyway. I've had the same thing happen with corn bread, brownies and chili that I have taken. It's pretty awesome.

A couple of people asked me for the recipe, so I am posting it here.

Pumpkin Carrot Bread

Preheat oven to 350.

1 (15-oz.) can pumpkin*

2 cups sugar*

1.5 cups salad oil

4 eggs

4 cups GF flour*

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground allspice*

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground mace

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp orange peel*

1 tsp. rum flavoring

2 cups finely grated raw carrots*

1 cup nuts (optional)*

Combine flour and other dry ingredients in smaller bowl.

Combine pumpkin, sugar, oil, and eggs. Beat for 2 minutes. 

Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture. Mix well.

Stir in rum flavor, carrots and nuts.

Bake

Muffins: 20 minutes

Small Loaves: 35 minutes

Large Breads 55-65 minutes.

*Make sure you get the pumpkin, not the pre-spiced pumpkin pie filling. If you use that, you can leave out the spices or cut them in half. It's not the same flavor, but it works. Or you can use 2 cups of home-cooked pumpkin if you wring it through a cheesecloth to get out all the extra moisture. 

*I used about 1 cup and a half of natural cane sugar, and a half cup of brown sugar because I ran out of the cane sugar.

*I used about 2 cups of Domata Living Flour, and about 2 cups of another brand, I think it's Better Batter. 

*If it's easier you can just throw in a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon. I like the mixture for flavor and because cinnamon is also on my food sensitivities list. 

*Orange peel is the dried kind in the jar, but I'm sure fresh would be good too. It adds a little zing. 

*I like baby carrots for their tenderness and sweetness, but regular carrots can be used, or even dried carrots if they are properly soaked first.

*I leave out the nuts for church parties for a certain little girl I know can't eat them. 

Christmas Breakfast--breaking tradition

To anyone who reads this--I hope you had a wonderful and happy Christmas day.

Our family Christmas breakfast tradition is strawberry whipped cream waffles. Then my daughter-in-law entered the family, with a strawberry allergy, so we added the option of raspberries.  Still delicious!

Now comes Momm with all the crazy food limitations. What to do? My son hosted the breakfast this year, and he found blackberries on sale, wonderful sweet berries.

I went to Sunflower Farmer's Market in Murray, Utah, (why oh why doesn't my town have a great health food store like that one?) and picked up a package of Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free pancake and waffle mix and some Rice Dream rice milk.  This actually made delicious waffles! 

I didn't even try to replace the whipped cream; I just used real maple syrup and blackberries. This was wonderful!  I had asked the kids to pick up sugar-free applesauce, another good topping option, but they forgot.  Still, I had a yummy breakfast with only a small break in tradition. They made wassail without the cinnamon, which is still very good.

 I noticed I wasn't the only one to use the maple syrup--it was half gone, and my hosting son gladly claimed the rest of the bottle.  This is very good; it'll keep me from binging on the sweet stuff.

Continental Breakfast

I have always liked staying at hotels with free continental breakfast.  We spent two nights at Super 8, one in Lincoln Nebraska, one in Cheyenne Wyoming (not one I care to repeat) and both have reasonable rates and free breakfast.

The first morning I had orange juice and apple juice, two things I could eat out of a lovely array of rolls, toast, waffles, butter, milk, cereal, yogurt, bagels, etc.  My husband had a wonderful breakfast. So did I, after a stop at a great co-op natural foods store in Lincoln,  Open Harvest. They had the best hummus I have ever eaten!  I am going to experiment and see if I can figure out their secret.

The hotel in Cheyenne had a much smaller array, but I had come prepared. I brought a box of cereal, some rice milk, a bit of fruit, and some nuts.  After a wonderful, filling breakfast, we were ready to hit the road again, and off we went to our final destination.

We are now staying at In-Town Suites, a no frills weekly rental hotel.  No continental breakfast, but I am not worried.  I have my leftover box of cereal and milk, plenty of fruit, nuts, dates, etc, and a plan to stop at one of the great health food stores, either Whole Foods or Sunflower Market,  for whatever else I need. I brought my rice cooker, crockpot, and pots and pans so I can cook whole grains for breakfast and lunch.  Yum!