3 cups flour
1½ cups Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Sweetie Magic™
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups Roasted Pumpkin (Recipe follows)
     or 1 (15 oz.) can 100% pumpkin
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup raisins
Vegetable oil spray

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Spray 2 loaf pans (or 24 muffin cups) with vegetable oil spray.

In the bowl of a kitchen mixer, combine the flour, Sweetie Magic, sugar, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Mix the dry ingredients at slow speed with a paddle or whisk attachment. Add the eggs, oil and pumpkin and process at medium speed until combined. Fold in the pecans and raisins. Fill the loaf pans or muffin cups about 2/3 full with the batter.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (about 1 hour for the bread, or 40 minutes for the muffins.)

Roasted Pumpkin

Nothing makes pumpkin bread taste better than fresh pumpkin. Once you've tasted a bread made with fresh pumpkin, it's difficult to go back to canned. We do not recommend using jack-o-lantern pumpkins for making pumpkin puree. Field pumpkins, the type sold for carving, tend to be stringy and bland. The best pumpkin for baking is the sugar pumpkin. It is small and sweet, with dark orange colored flesh. Your fresh pumpkin puree can be refrigerated for up to three days, or frozen up to five months. A medium-sized sugar pumpkin, which is about a four-pound pumpkin, should yield about 1½ cups mashed pumpkin. Roasting pumpkins is easy and can be done in several ways. Small pumpkins may be roasted whole in the oven; larger ones may be cut into pieces before roasting.

For large pumpkins (5 pounds and over):

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. Cut the pumpkin into wedges.
3. Remove the seeds and pulp but leave the skin on.
4. Place the pieces on a baking pan.
5. Roast in oven until the flesh can be penetrated easily with a knife. The time will vary depending on the size and type of pumpkin, but can take several hours.
6. Remove from oven and cool.
7. Cut off the skin and discard.
8. Cut the pumpkin meat into 2-inch pieces. The pumpkin meat is now ready to use.

For small pumpkins (Up to 5 pounds):

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. Place the whole pumpkin on a baking pan.
3. Roast in oven until the flesh can be penetrated easily with a knife. The time will vary depending on the size and type of pumpkin, but can take an hour or more.
4. Remove from oven and cool.
5. Cut off the skin and stem. Discard.
6. Cut the pumpkin in half.
7. Remove the seeds and pulp.
8. Cut the pumpkin meat into 2-inch pieces. The pumpkin meat is now ready to use.

Copyright © 2002 by Chef Paul Prudhomme
All Rights Reserved
PO Box 23342, New Orleans, Louisiana 70183-0342
Phone (504) 731-3590 ~ Fax (504) 731-3576 or email to: info@chefpaul.com