Grandma's Pumpkin Bread

When I visited home for weekends during college, my family would often send me back to the dorm with snacking essentials. Cookies, Skittles, mini orange juice cartons, Nutra-grain bars. And sometimes, if I was lucky, a loaf of Grandma's pumpkin bread.

My friend Lesley was my roommate for my first two years of college, so she would often benefit from these snacks, too. In fact, she still remembers how my Grandma would send me back to college with a special loaf for her birthday.

Lesley emailed me several weeks ago asking me for the recipe. She was craving the bread. The email got buried in my inbox, and, well, I forgot. But as time got closer to her visit, I found the email again and knew what I should do: dig out the recipe and bake her a loaf.

It was my first time attempting Grandma's bread, even though I've had the recipe for years. I can say it was pretty darn good, but it's always just a little better when Grandma makes it, isn't it?

Since this recipes makes two large loafs, I took one to work, where it met with some enormously positive feedback and a couple of recipe requests.

Ingredients

2/3 cup shortening
2-2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 can (15 oz.) pure pumpkin
2/3 cup water
3-1/3 cup flour
2 tspn baking soda
1-1/2 tspn salt
1/2 tspn baking powder
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn cloves
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
2/3 cup raisins (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two large loaf pans.

Cream shortening and add sugar thoroughly. Add eggs, pumpkin and water. Blend in dry ingredients, except nuts and raisins. Add nuts and raisins last, if desired.

Bake in preheated oven until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (40-50 minutes).

My notes

*Instead of 1 tspn cloves, you could use 1/2 tpsn cloves and 1/2 tspn nutmeg.

*I used the nuts but not the raisins. But I've had it with raisins, too. Either way, it's delish.

*These freeze very well.