Spiced Pumpkin and Carrot Multigrain Loaf

garam masala spiced pumpkin loaf

I posted this picture to my instagram account and a lot of friends asked for the recipe. I thought I would do a quick post. I teach this in my healthy baking workshop and students are usually quite surprised at the soft texture which I believe is largely due to pumpkin puree.

I have a special love for yellow pumpkin. I love it as a vegetable, made into a really tangy curry, the way we make it in the south, stir fried with minimal spices and eaten with roti, and as a base for creamy soups minus any cream. But I love baking with pumpkin. The puree of yellow pumpkin lends itself beautifully to rolls and loaves and makes eggless baking particularly moist and soft. Fruit and vegetable purees are great if one wants to do any of the following:

1) Bake eggless versions of cakes and loaves

2) Cut back on sugar and fat

3) Bake with wholegrain flours because coarser flours need more moisture and purees are perfect for this

So this is a recipe that has very little fat, I used vegetable oil, but feel free to use melted butter in the same amount. I’ve used powdered organic jaggery for sweetness. I love using garam masala to bake with, for one it is easily accessible on the kitchen shelf and has great depth of flavour due to the blend of spices over a single spice like nutmeg (to which I am very partial) or cinnamon.

Spiced Pumpkin and Carrot Multigrain Loaf

(Makes one 9 inch loaf)

1+1/4  cup Whole wheat flour

1/2 cup Powdered oats (I use quick cooking oats, powdered in the blender)

¼ cup Ragi flour

2 teaspoons Baking powder

1 teaspoon Baking soda/ soda bi carb

½ teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoons Garam masala powder (or a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and a pinch of pepper)

3/4 cup Grated Jaggery/ palm sugar/ brown sugar

½ cup Vegetable oil

1 Egg (replace with 1/4 cup milk+ 1/2 teaspoon vinegar)

2/3 cup Pumpkin puree (pressure cook or boil chunks of peeled and deseeded yellow pumpkin till fully cooked and puree in a blender with a splash of water)

½ cup Grated yellow pumpkin

½ cup Grated carrot

½ cup raisins

½ cup Walnuts/ Almonds (optional, I did’nt add them)

• Sift the flours with the salt, baking powder, baking soda, garam masala powder and set aside. Mix in the grated carrot and pumpkin with the flour.
• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease a 9 inch loaf pan / baking pan.
• Beat together the oil, egg, pumpkin puree. Add the jaggery/ brown sugar to the wet ingredients and whisk till well mixed.
• Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in 3 batches and fold in gently.
• Bake for 45-55 minutes or till a tester comes out clean.
• Cool in the pan  for 10 minutes and transfer to  a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

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