Pumpkin Coconut Pecan Bread

Thanks to Jim for this recipe!! I think he puts more time into this cooking blog than I do! haha

Sorry I took so long to get this up. I know Thanksgiving has passed, but you can still enjoy it with your leftovers. (But besides, every day is Thanksgiving Day in Brazil, am I right?? :D)

Jim says....

This recipe rocks.  The bread is flavorful, super moist, rich in texture, and when served with butter you will involuntarily drift into a dreamy state and think of your sweet, loving  grandmother.  Be forewarned.

I wanted a taste of Thanksgiving to welcome Luiz home with (he has been out of town for nearly a week).  After some TasteSpotting [http://www.tastespotting.com/] I found this recipe [http://www.duodishes.com/2010/11/18/another-go-around/] which could stand up to my slight modifications.

Ingredients:

12 Tbl. butter (about ¾ of the block of butter)

15 ounces of pumpkin purée (1 ¾ cups)

1 c. sugar

1 c. brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 ½ c. flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

¾ c. golden raisins

1/3 c.  flaked coconut

¼ c. chopped pecans (if not available, I think chopped Brazil nuts would work well)

Method:

Roast a nice chunk of seeded abóbora in a hot oven, enough to collect 1 ¾ cups of creamed pumpkin.  This might take 1 ½ hours.  Do not drain the liquid that will separate from the vegetable.  Let it reincorporate, then scrape the roasted vegetable from the rind and purée.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 9” x 5 ½” loaf pan.

Place the butter in a small pan over medium heat and warm until all of the butter has melted and it begins to crackle and pop, turn brown and the milk solids separate and float to the bottom of the pan.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Using a mixer, beat together the abóbora, both sugars, the eggs and vanilla.  Mix well until the sugars are no longer grainy when the mixture is rubbed between your fingers.  Blend in the melted butter.

In a separate bowl wisk together the dry ingredients.  Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined.  Do not over mix.  Fold in the raisins, coconut and pecans.

Pour the rather wet batter into your prepared pan and bake for an hour (likely longer) until a tooth pick comes out clean.  Don’t be afraid – it will take a while.  Keep baking until it is done.

 Let it cool a bit before trying to remove the loaf from the pan.  Then cool completely on a rack.

Slice, spread with butter, then go say hello to your sweet grandmother.