Pumpkin Bread and Gingerbread

Ok, so it is snowing and it is the holidays, so I am going a little baking crazy. Usually I go a little crazy without an excuse, but the holidays present a special excuse for massive baking endeavors. Hopefully someone will be around to start eating my creations before I give myself a heart attack.

Let's start with the gingerbread. I used this recipe from Epicurious:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Gramercy-Tavern-Gingerbread-103087
I added lemon zest and chunks of crystalized ginger and baked them in muffin tins (surprise surprise- I try to make everything into cupcakes), which was fabulous because it increased the amount of chewy top that I love so much. This recipe involves beer, and so there was an open bottle sitting on the countertop at 10 a.m. when the cleaning lady arrived. I made a point of saying that the beer was for the gingerbread and not for my morning consumption.

Then I made pumpkin bread from a fabulous recipe courtesy of The Martha Stewart Cookbook (page 111). It really is a great recipe, so I would like to share it with you. I was inspired to make pumpkin bread when my dad rescued some pumpkins from the porch after the first night of freezing. They were a little mushy, but I cooked them up and made bread. Then I talked to my mom, who informed me that they were not, in fact, sugarpie pumpkins like I had assumed, but the normal inedible cheap kind. Oops. The pumpkin bread tasted great despite this mistake, so I assume this really is a great recipe.

Pumpkin Bread

12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons molasses
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2/3 cup orange juice
2 cups pumpkin puree
3 1/3 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cardamom (I added this to the recipe)

Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Butter three 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pans.
With an electric mixer, cream butter, molasses, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add orange juice and pumpkin and mix well.
Sift dry ingredients together into a large bowl, and add the pumpkin mixture, stirring well with a wooden spoon.
Spoon into prepared pans. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to rack for cooling.