Pumpkin Chai Loaf

This recipe was originally posted on August 7, 2009 – when this blog was truly in its infancy. When I switched over hosts the first time and tried to fiddle with improving the look and feel of my site a lot of images weren’t carried over properly. I actually had forgotten about this recipe completely because I had inadvertently not included it on the Recipe page. Whoops!

It’s okay though, the old version was lousy, ugly and not well written.

So let’s start from scratch, shall we?

This pumpkin chai loaf is pretty amazing. It bakes up like a dream and can accommodate all sorts of add-ins with ease. It takes no time at all to throw together. I know this for a fact because when I finally remembered this recipe and went to make it I had a staff meeting to host in an hour and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get the loaf in the oven and baked off in time to serve goodies afterward. Well I did it. The mixture went together in under 10 minutes, no sweat.

Recipe Notes:

Since this recipe only uses 1 cup of pumpkin puree you might be wondering what to do with the rest of the pumpkin in your giant can. I suggest browsing these recipes. Surely at this time of year, there’s no shortage of pumpkin recipes floating around. I’m sure it won’t go to waste. If all else fails, portion it out into containers or ziploc bags in 1 cup measurements and freeze it. Handy dandy.

For sweetener you can use brown sugar, coconut sugar or agave nectar in this recipe. I’ve used all three at different times and have had success.

Let’s chat a second about egg replacer options for this recipe. Every time I’ve made it I’ve opted to use powdered egg replacer mixed up to equal the two eggs required. I suppose you could use banana or applesauce egg replacer but I wonder about the additional moisture it would give the already moist loaf. I probably wouldn’t use a flax egg but a chia egg, using ground chia would probably be okay. If you try something other than powdered egg replacer let me know how it turns out in the comments.

The fresh pressed apple juice is a nice treat. I rarely end up buying some but randomly enough I had a jug of fresh pear and apple juice in the fridge that I had been sipping on all week and needed to be used up so it went into this recipe. The acidity is important for this recipe I think so if you don’t have fresh pressed apple juice on hand I’d suggest going with pulp-free orange juice. It might change the flavor slightly but I doubt it’ll be very noticeable at all.

If you don’t have all the spices for the chai flavoring you could use pumpkin pie spice and call this Pumpkin Pie Loaf. Or you could adjust the seasonings as I’ve suggested in the recipe below.

As for what to add-in once the batter is mixed, it’s really up to you. Here are some suggestions:

• 3/4 cup chopped fresh cranberries
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, pistachios)
• 1/2 cup dried fruit (raisins, cherries, blueberries, cranberries)

In these photos I was rushed and grabbed the closest thing I could find which – embarrassing to admit – were chocolate chips. Not that there’s anything wrong with chocolate chips. It made this loaf a total hit with our employees at the staff meeting.