A two for one pumpkin/chai combo: bread and smoothies
Step right up folks… I’ve got a deal for you today. That’s right. Just for you! And for today only. A two for one deal. Read one recipe and get a second one absolutely FREE!!! I know. I know. You’re all reading that and thinking “that can’t be right. there’s no way. Melissa… have you lost your mind???”
That’s right… I’ve gone craaaaazy!
I realized the other day that I was dangerously close to running out of cookies. I just didn’t feel like making any. Or, photographing any. Cookies feel like my nemesis some days – in more ways than one. I just love them so.
And then I remembered that while I was visiting All That’s Left Are the Crumbs, I stumbled on a recipe she’d posted up back in the fall for pumpkin chai spiced bread. I love pumpkin, and I love chai tea. I’m a Starbucks junkie but, honest to god, I don’t drink coffee. Hate the taste. Love the smell. Hate the taste. I’m a contradiction like that. haha. I could say that you could hook me up to a non-fat Chai tea latte IV and I’d be happy, but I wouldn’t. I want to drink the stuff. Not have it bypass my tastebuds.
Anywaaaaaay… the recipe sounded fantastic and I decided to give it a whirl. The only problem was, afterwards, I had some leftover pumpkin… what to do!? So, the next morning, I popped it in a blender with a frozen banana and a few other things et voila! Pumpkin Smoothie for breakfast! And so, you get two recipes today instead of one!
The Chai Pumpkin bread was wonderful. The chai flavour came through beautifully and was a perfect complement to the pumpkin. The extra spices gave it nice zip.
Pumpkin Chai Bread
This recipe comes courtesy of All That’s Left Are the Crumbs and I got to have a lovely little chat with the author when I asked for permission to republish it. That was a nice treat. And I noticed while I was getting the link for this post that she also has a recipe for chai snickerdoodles! I have to make those too now!
The only change I made to this was to add a icing sugar/milk glaze after baking.
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup canned pumpkin
2 large eggs
2 chai tea bags steeped in 1/2 cup of boiling water
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp each of cardamom, ginger, black pepper
1/4 tsp each of cloves, nutmeg and allspice
Preheat oven to 350F
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add pumpkin, eggs, chai tea liquid, vanilla and stir until well combined.
Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spice and stir until just evenly moistened.
Pour into prepared 8″ loaf pan and bake 45-55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool at least 20 minutes before serving.
Pumpkin Smoothie
1 frozen banana
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp plain yogurt
1 tsp honey
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves
Pop all the ingredients into a blender and blend till smooth. Serves one large smoothie or two small ones.
Next time I’ll add a chai concentrate like the one used in the bread and use my usual vanilla soy milk which I was out of. It was tasty but I think it can still be tweaked a little bit.
Photography
The Shot: 50mm, f3.2, 1/80th, ISO400, no exposure compensation. Only natural light was used – the shot was backlit from mid morning light from my south facing kitchen window.
Post Processing: I added a little split toning on this image in post processing. I increased the blue saturation on the highlights and upped orange saturation on the shadows by a tiny bit in Camera RAW. A 25% burn was added to the largest piece of the bread on the plate in the foreground in Photoshop. Total post time: 4 minutes.
I am so glad that you enjoyed it Melissa. Your photo of the finished product is just lovely and makes me want to reach for a piece of cake and a sip of smoothie. You really did it justice.
Thanks for letting me use the recipe Felice! It turned out so well – not too sweet and with a nice spicy kick – now I have to try out your chai snickerdoodles!
I haven’t had a Chai tea latte from Starbucks in ages! You just reminded me of how much I used to love those. I also love pumpkin bread but I think it can be rather bland sometimes, so I love that this recipe has the Chai added along with other spices.
pumpkin is very bland. I forgot how bland until I licked the spoon I used to get it out of the can! The chai and extra spices really helped bring the flavour out.
I love those lattes but they upped the price recently to a point where I find it hard to justify one :(. The chai fraps taste like liquid pumpkin pie to me though!
Pumpkin bread is my favorite! Mixed with a pumpkin smoothie and I’m in heaven.
I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the smoothie but I think it needs a bit more tweaking.
flavourful and delicious pumpkin bread
The bread looks delicious! And I did the same thing with my leftover pumpkin! I was on a smoothie kick this winter, so I made sweet potato pie smoothie, pumpkin pie smoothie, ginger cashew smoothies. Hahaha!
ginger and cashew! that sounds pretty interesting… I think sweet potato would make a great smoothie – you’re really only limited by your imagination with smoothies.