Warm pumpkin bread with a schmear
“This is a pumpkin service announcement.” That’s what my grandmother used to say before she began whipping up the batter for her famous coffeecan pumpkin bread.
It was her polite and quirky way of warning folks that the kitchen was off limits for at least an hour. This gave her enough time to get the batter made, the bread in the oven and everything cleaned up.
She typically made this bread around Halloween and because it “freezes well” and made four loaves we had more to look forward to throughout the rest of the winter. Sometimes she’d serve warm slices with a generous schmear of cream cheese frosting. A little slice of heaven with angel coating on a plate, she called it.
I loved sitting on the kitchen counter, my legs dangling over the sides and the backs of my heels gently thumping the cupboard helping her crack the eggs, dump in the measured ingredients and mix the batter. But the best part was getting to lick the spoon when it was all said and done.
There was something calming, comforting, peaceful in baking pumpkin bread with Grandma especially on cold, gray stormy Kentucky days. As the wind whipped and the rain beat against the window panes the smell of baking sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves warmed the house and our spirits.
I remember though the year this peaceful activity was shattered. Grandma and I were assembling the ingredients. I was carefully carrying the canister of flour in my two small hands as Grandma opened the refrigerator to get out the eggs when …
She shrieked and slammed the appliance’s door, startling me into dropping the flour canister spilling the flour across the floor. Next thing I knew Grandma, still shrieking, grabbed the broom and headed toward me. I ducked under the kitchen table and she kept on going through the spilled flour that puffed up in dusty clouds in her wake as she returned to the refrigerator.
Holding the broom upside-down in one hand she yanked open the refrigerator door with the other, jumped back while simultaneously flailing the broom and, from my perspective from under the table, began beating the bottle of milk with it. It didn’t take long for the bottle to fall out of the fridge, smash and start mixing with the spilled flour into a gooey mess on the floor and still grandma kept beating on it with the broom.
And that’s when I saw it — a spider. And not just your average, every day squash with your foot spider. This guy was nearly the size of by 5-year-old hand.
I scuttled further under the table.
My grandfather came storming into the kitchen, “Myra, what the h-ll is going on?”
“Spider, Sam! Spider!” At which point my Uncle Jim came charging in hollering, “It’s not real, Mom. It was a joke. See?” he said picking up the offending realistic piece of spidery rubber.
And that was when Grandma turned the broom on him. Out the back door went my uncle with Grandma and her broom hot on his heels. He ended up taking refuge at a neighbor’s house and when he did come home that night Grandma served everyone except him warm pumpkin bread with a schmear.
They’re all gone now — Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Jim — but this pumpkin bread recipe brings back wonderful memories of them every year. I hope if you bake it, it will make good memories for you too.
Grandma’s Pumpkin Bread
Mix together well and set aside:
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup oil
• 4 eggs
• 2⁄3 cup water
In large mixing bowl sift together:
• 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon each — nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
DIRECTIONS » Take 1 cup of the dry ingredients and toss in 1 cup raisins and 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans. Add the dry mixed ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Fold in coated raisins and nuts. Grease and flour four coffee cans or four 8-by-4 inch bread pans; fill about halfway with batter. Bake at 350 degrees checking at one hour and baking up to another 20-minutes if needed.