Aunt Lydia's Amish Pumpkin Bread

This is our family's favorite pumpkin bread from my Great-Aunt Lydia! I like to make this delicious bread all year long but especially in the fall. It smells so good when baking! This recipe comes from the Amish cookbook from Kalona, Iowa which is where my dad's family is from.

Pumpkin Bread

Here's the recipe just as it appears in the cookbook. Of course, I have tried to "healthify" it a bit. You'll see my notes at the end. 

This recipe makes 2 regular bread pan-sized loaves, 6 mini loaves or oodles of muffins! You can half the recipe if you like; I just make the whole recipe and freeze whatever we can't use right away! It freezes wonderfully and also makes nice gifts around the holidays. 

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons cinnamon
3 teaspoons nutmeg
3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 cup oil
4 eggs
2/3 cup water
2 cups canned pumpkin

Directions:
Combine dry ingredients and mix well. Make a hole in the center. Add the 4 moist ingredients. Mix well. Pour into greased pans.

Bake at 350 degrees.

**If using large pans, bake for about 1 hour.
**For mini loaves, bake for 40-45 minutes.
**Muffins are usually done at about 30 minutes.

Pumpkin bread is done baking when a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Serve plain or spread with butter or cream cheese.

**A handful of two of cranberries can be added to the batter, if desired.

My Healthy Variations:
--Instead of white flour, I use all whole wheat pastry flour.
--Instead of white sugar, I use evaporated cane juice crystals which is an unrefined sugar. I reduced the amount of sugar from 3 cups to a scant 2 cups. Since the cane juice crystals don't dissolve as well as refined sugar, I powdered it by whirring it in my coffee grinder. This worked great!