yummy yummy pumpkin bread

If you're looking for my giveaway at Keepin' It Thrifty, click HERE.

It's October, time to make yummy pumpkin recipes! This one is for the most amazing, moist, just enough spice, pumpkin bread. Make it today, you won't be disappointed. I doubled the recipe exactly and it yielded 6 beautiful yummy loaves of bread.

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 2.5 cups white sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Recipe Yields 3 - 7x3 inch loaf pans 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans. Top with desired extras (nuts, chocolate chips, etc.)
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

{baking goodies}

I'll start out this post by saying that I'm not being paid or compensated in ANY way by Bake It Pretty for this post. (However I'd love to accept anything from them, as I'm sure you will after reading this post, hehe.) 

I've blogged about Bake It Pretty before, and continue to order all my baking needs from them. They carry every fun, random, unique baking gadget, cup, sprinkle, and cookie cutter you could think up. As soon as I knew that we were going with a ladybug theme for Ella's party I got my order together. I knew that they'd have just what I'd need for baking the cupcakes, and other party goods. 

I decided to go with the giant pastry frosting tip, black and white polka dot baking cups, and cherry red dotted portion cups, and as soon as I got the package in the mail I couldn't wait to get it open. Every time I get my order from them it feels like Christmas!

cute packaging

baking cups and frosting tip

Here are the stock photos of my order from the website:

via bake it pretty

via bake it pretty

via bake it pretty

Everything is SO darling! I can't wait to use it all at the party, especially that giant frosting tip. I've been dying to try that out. I'll be sure to post pictures of how everything turned out. Until then, have some fun browsing their site, you'll be sure to find something that you just have to have.

{Craving Chocolate}

Mmmmm....chocolate! It's football season and that means that most days of the week my t.v. has been taken over by my husband and his obsession with football. This season I'm trying to be a good sport and make the most of it, which to me means I have another excuse to bake goodies and cook up treats to eat while watching the game.

I suggested we invite some friends over for food and merriment during the first real weekend of the football season. Any reason to have a small party right? Not surprisingly my husband was all for it.

These chocolate cupcakes are nothing special really, just a basic recipe, but I did try out my new mini cupcake pan, and the mini espresso brown paper liners I bought a while back at this fabulous online bake shop. They are just adorable! And not to mention the perfect bite size. Maybe even too perfect. You could eat a dozen of them no problem.

I also made their larger counter part in oversized white paper baking cups. I actually prefer the oversized ones to regular sized baking cups, I like the excess at the top, it's pretty and is perfect for catching the frosting if it should go dripping down the sides.

I haven't been posting as regular due to school starting and my new job. I've been a busy girl! But I have a lot of projects to share with you all, most of which are related to the baby shower I am planning for my best friend. I don't want to spoil the surprise for the mom to be, so i'll be waiting until after the shower in a few weeks to post all those projects and goodies.

{Baking It Pretty}

Hands down, one of my favorite leisure activities is baking. It's such a stress reliever for me that I bake every chance I get, at least once a week. I've posted before about a lovely little site that sells adorable baking goods called Bake It Pretty. Last week I ordered some light blue office-esque tags, chocolate brown mini and regular sized cupcake liners, and my new favorite cookie cutter, which I have affectionately named "the 'stache". I am already thinking of a few people who will be receiving cookies made with "the 'stache" very soon, and the husband has already requested I make some for his upcoming birthday.

It's so exciting opening the mailbox to see a package you know is going to be filled with great things. I was very excited today was delivery day. My items were packaged nicely in a brown paper bag with a Bake It Pretty sticker seal. I love details like that.

I suggest you stop by the site and take a look around. It's filled with a million awesome things for the baker who obsesses over making food pretty. Because eating cute food is a millions times more fun, right?

Oh, in other AG news...I've started a Flickr account. (I know, I know, who doesn't have a Flickr account? Apparently no one except me until today.) I'm hoping it makes me more diligent about taking photos and blogging about them. You can see the scant collection so far here.

{Homemade & Handwritten}

For a while now I've been on the hunt for new recipe cards. My recipe box is scattered with torn, stained, and faded recipe cards that are close to unreadable. My only problem, is that I am looking for a highly personalized, cute and cheap card to replace them. I found a few that fit one or two of the said requirements, but not all three.These and these (oh and these) are very good options, and I would love to have any of them, but they are lacking in the third requirement, cheap. And don't we all know that that is the most important (at least in my case it is).

The internet does have a plethora of free downloadable cards to choose from, but they lack in personalization and design...so I decided to make my own. A perfect solution to my 3 requirements! I made three different designs choosing only one in the end. Inspiration for the last design came from this stationary I found on Etsy, and it was my design choice for the new cards. I found the vector clip art for free online, and arranged images/changed colors in Photoshop. I also added a monogram to the design and some lines for neater recipe writing. My printer prints on a variety of paper sizes, so I put 3x5 index cards directly into the machine and out came my new cards!

The most tedious part came when I transfered all my recipes to my new cards. We both know that handwritten is so much more charming than typed, it took me a few hours, but the end result was worth it. I now have a completely new set of recipe cards that I love!

{Baking, Wishing...}

I usually bake 1-2 times per week. A variety of things, cookies, cup cakes, frosting, breads, muffins, you name it. It's a sickening hobby. Sickening to my stomach, that is. While I do have quite a collection of cookie cutters and such I am always on the lookout for unique baking supplies. My dream job, create yummy things full time. Then I would be able to put all the fun things I come across to actual good use (instead of my own consumption) These amazing items are on my "wish list" of baking. The photos and items are from Bake It Pretty and you can bet i'll be ordering them.  

1. A gnome cookie cutter. 

(I would love to make a small army of these out of my favorite sugar cookie dough.)

2. My hands down favorite, petit pine cone cupcake toppers.

3. The cutest deer family cupcake toppers.

4. Some beautiful paper baking cups. 

Bon Appetite!

{Sweet Tooth}

I made several batches of these yummy cookies for gifts this Valentine's Day. The dough is buttery and the jam is a great alternative to the normal frosting and sprinkles. Well, I guess you could use sprinkles, that might be nice. Anyways, use this recipe and you're sure to be satisfying all sweet tooth's this V-Day.