Pumpkin Cornbread

I was making lasagna for the main dish at dinner. One friend was bringing white chicken chili which i was SO excited about....and my excitement was well founded- it was delicious! Another friend was bring a salad. The salad turned out delicious as well. It was an "Eat Michigan" salad designed specifically for us Buckeye fans! It included various foods that are apparently grown  in Michigan like cherries and apples and maple syrup (in the dressing). So good! Anyways, I decided we needed some sort of bread product and I wasn't really feeling like I had the patience to make a yeast roll, so I went with this Pumpkin Cornbread from Erica at Itzy's kitchen. She  got it from Recipe Girl.

Here are the ingredients:

½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup cornmeal
2 large eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree (canned or freshly cooked and processed)
2/3 cup brown sugar
¼ cup canola oil
1 Tbs molasses

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease 10-inch glass pie pan or 9-inch square baking pan.

2. Sift flours, baking powder, salt and spices in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in cornmeal.

3. In separate bowl, beat eggs lightly. Whisk in pumpkin, brown sugar, oil and molasses. (Yes, sometimes I use tupperware as mixing bowls....it's just easier that way!)

 

 

 

4. Make a well in the dry mixture. Add pumpkin mixture and blend batter with a few quick strokes (just until blended- don’t overmix).

 

 

5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes, or until cornbread is browned and the surface has a slightly springy feel.

 This cornbread is quite dense, as Erica said. The flavor is good. The only thing I didn't like about it was really a matter of preference. The cornbread I'm used to has more flour in it, so you don't really taste the cornmeal. This recipe doesn't call for as much flour, so you can taste the cornmeal in the finished product and it makes it kinda crunchy which wasn't my favorite. But it's also much healthier than my mimi's cornbread recipe that I'm used to :) I might give it another whirl sometime and try tweaking the recipe because  I did like the pumpkin flavor!

Enjoy!
--Lindsay--