Mamma Speck's Pumpkin Bread

As God is my witness I will never make pumpkin puree from scratch again. I don't even know why I decided to tackle this task. Maybe it was the sad pumpkin just sitting in my foyer waiting to be tossed out on the street curb on trash day like a figment of Halloween past, or maybe I just had too much extra time on my hands, or maybe, just maybe I'm masochistic and needed some form of torture to put upon myself. Whatever it was, it will never happen again. It sucked. I first took the pumpkin and cut off the top, then cut down the sides of the pumpkin and created manageable pieces for me to scrape clean, peel and cut up. I did this for the whole pumpkin, then placed the pumpkin in a big pot and covered with enough cold water to cover the pumpkin; I then boiled the pumpkin for what seemed like three days, and then drained the pumpkin, cooled it, and then put it in the food processor. From this state I needed to strain it because it was so wet, the straining took forever, and halfway through I decided I had enough pumpkin puree and put the rest of the pumpkin in the garbage disposal. However, I did make this pumpkin bread with the homemade pumpkin puree, which sadly I thought tasted more like zucchini bread than pumpkin bread. Maybe I had the wrong kind of pumpkin, or it was too big, or it just wasn't meant to be, but from now on, it's canned pumpkin for me.

This recipe is from my friend (and former roommate) HL's mother who to this day I don't know her first name, because for the past 6 years I have been calling her Mamma Speck. She would make the best pumpkin bread, and send HL home with a loaf, which I'm sure was meant for HL, but I usually ended eating it and exclaiming with a mouth full of bread..."this is so damn good." HL and I lived together for a few fun filled years, but time passes and things change and our landlord doubled our rent and we couldn't afford to live in our apartment anymore. So we both took that chance and moved in with our boyfriends at the same time, boyfriends, which I am more than happy to say are now our husbands and we are both happily married.

The first year after we moved away from each other I received my very own pumpkin bread in the mail from Mamma Speck with her famous recipe in the package. This is Mamma Specks Pumpkin Bread.

Recipe:
1 1/2 C sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 2/3 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp each clove, nutmeg, cinnamon
1/2 C oil
1/2 C water
1 C canned pumpkin
2 eggs

Mix together oil, water, pumpkin and eggs. Combine dry ingredients together then add to wet mixture. Pour into greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.