Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Bread and Book Club

I haven't been blogging much lately. Shame on me but things have been pretty busy around these parts. This Saturday was my monthly book club meeting and it was lots of fun. The Italian says we should rename it to drink club with a side of book because we always end up talking about the book for all of 5 minutes and spend the rest of the night eating and drinking wine and/or beer. Well, wine for me anyhow. It's always so much fun! So this last months book was "The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World" by Eric Weiner. I really enjoyed this book. I won't write a review here but I will recommend it. It's a light read and full of humor. It's very enlightening and great for lovers of travel as well as for those that haven't ventured very far but would like a perspective on the world as someone else sees it. You can read about it here.



I baked a Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip bread and it was a huge success! My friend Claire's husband did a dance for me just after his first bite :-)




















Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip bread recipe:

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup apple sauce
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 can solid pack pumpkin
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup of water
3 tablespoons Canadian maple syrup
1/2 bag of semisweet chocolate chips

Optional: substitute chocolate chips for walnuts or use both!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl combine sugar, oil, applesauce and eggs. Add pumpkin and mix well.



Combine dry ingredients; add to the pumpkin mixture alternately with water.



















Pour into two greased loaf pans, or one loaf pan and one cupcake pan, or one bundt cake pan...etc, many possibilities!









Bake for 60 to 65 minutes or until the bread tests done. Drizzle maple syrup over the top when just out of the oven. Cool in pans for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Personally, I like to slice into it while it's still warm and add a dallup of Cool Whip!



Sorry there's no pic of the bread sliced. I didn't take my camera with me to book club but I am sure I will make it again really soon, so perhaps I'll post some pics then. Plus my photographer is in Milano so with only two hands it was hard to stop and take a pic so I just used the point & shoot.

Let me know if you try it and how it comes out!