I love to make healthy pumpkin bread in the winter since it is a great way to use up some of our pumpkins and winter squash in cool storage. Many of the pumpkin bread recipes I’ve come across are loaded with white sugar and brown sugar. Now don’t get me wrong, this mama with a sweet tooth loves a tasty sweet treat but loads of sugar is a bit much. We’ve been trying to cut back on the amount of sugar we eat since it makes us feel better. Instead we substitute in honey and/or maple syrup which are natural, unrefined sweeteners. This healthy pumpkin bread is still sweet, but not overly sweet like pumpkin bread made with loads of sugar.
I’ve been experimenting with substituting honey for sugar in recipes for a number of years. I’ve had some successes but also some flops. I couldn’t figure out why those flops happened so I did a little research and it made all the difference in the world! I read this helpful article on how to substitute maple syrup for sugar and then this article discusses how to substitute honey or maple syrup for sugar. With those suggested tweaks to my recipes, I’ve been able to successfully swap out honey or maple syrup in our favorite recipes and no more baking flops in the kitchen!
Now that we have our own honeybee hives on the homestead, we’ve been harvesting our own raw honey every fall. This provides our family with delicious raw honey to last throughout the year. I love that this healthy pumpkin bread is made with pumpkin we grew in our garden, honey from our bee hives and eggs from our chickens!
How to make healthy pumpkin bread:
Ingredients:
-2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (we use this unrefined, non-GMO flour that is grown in Montana)
-1 1/2 cups wheat flour
-3 tsp baking soda
-1 1/2 tsp salt
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp each: ground ginger, nutmeg and ground cloves
-1 1/2 cups honey
-2 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin or winter squash (here’s how to make your own puree)
-4 eggs, beaten
-1/4 cup coconut oil, liquified
-1/2 cup chopped walnuts and/or pecans (optional)
-1 cup raisins
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl and make a well in the center.
- In another bowl, stir together the pureed pumpkin/squash, honey, eggs, coconut oil, nuts and raisins.
- Pour the liquidy pumpkin mix into the well in the dry ingredients and stir just until all the dry ingredients are mixed in.
- Grease two bread loaf pans (these are our favorite glass loaf pans we always grease with coconut oil and the bread loaves pop right out when done!)
- Pour the batter into the two bread loaf pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 50-75 minutes. I set a timer for 50 minutes and check the bread every ten minutes after that until it is done.
- When done, remove the bread from the oven, let them cool a little then remove the loaves from the bread pans to finish cooling on a wire rack. Slice and enjoy!
What is your favorite way to use pumpkin and winter squash?
Almas.Nathoo
February 21, 2016 at 9:35 amHi,
I like your recipe please I don”t use honey in baking because it is very expensive in my part of city. I can make honey in garden but city does not allow us to do that. Please can you let me know much sugar I would need. ? I have pureed pumpkins from garden. I always make soups. I would like to try this recipe. I enjoy your web page very much.
thanks once
almas.
MontanaHomesteader
February 21, 2016 at 4:48 pmThat’s unfortunate that honey is so expensive where you live, I guess we take it for granted we have access to raw honey from our bee hives or even in local stores at affordable prices. To convert the recipe back to using sugar, replace the honey with 1 cup unrefined white sugar and 1 cup brown sugar. Also increase the coconut oil to 1/2 cup.
Darryl C
February 22, 2016 at 5:05 pmI really like Montana wheat… I use Bronze Chief & Prarie Gold bought at my Amish store. I grind 50/50 to make my bread and Pastry blend for other baked goods>>>
Montana Homesteader
February 24, 2016 at 8:38 amI use the Bronze Chief too and just a couple months ago bought my first bag of Prairie Gold to try out in my baking!