GF/CF Pumpkin Bread

Yes! You are in the right place! Today, I crafted some time in the kitchen with my daughter to bake some delicious pumpkin bread!

Our son has a restricted diet and eats gluten and casein (the protein in dairy) free, mostly soy free, msg/nitrite/nitrate free, low sugar (almost no refined sugars), as preservative & chemical free and organic as we can get. With that being said, I read every ingredient label, am constantly making substitutions, spend a good deal of time grocery shopping, and have learned a lot in the last almost two years that he has been eating this way.

While the entire house is not always gf/cf (plus everything else), our family meals are, and when it comes to baking......well, we do not keep any gluten flours in the house at all. Flour gets in the air and will contaminate everything. So, when my Princess wanted to use the canned organic pumpkin we bought at Trader Joe's yesterday, I set about looking for a recipe online that we could all eat and love.

I found a GF/CF (gluten free/casein free) blog through a google search and found this recipe as a great place to start. We rarely use any refined sugar, even in baking (though I do have an emergency stash of organic cane sugar for recipes that just do not work with sugar substitutes), so I headed here for sugar substitutes and their equivalents. I chose to use a combination of honey and agave syrup. Here's my version of Kathi's recipe for our gf/cf pumpkin bread:

Yummy GF/CF Pumpkin Bread

1 c. Quinoa flour *

1/2 c. Sorghum flour

1/2 tsp. Sea salt

1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda (aluminum free)

1 tsp. Xantham gum

1/4 tsp. Freshly grated nutmeg

1 heaping tsp. Cinnamon (we use Ceylon cinnamon) *

1/4 tsp. Ground Allspice

1/8 tsp. Ground Ginger

1 1/4 c. Pumpkin puree *

1/4 c. Vegetable oil (usually we use Canola for this to avoid the soy, but I was out)

1/4c. Ghee, melted, but not hot (essentially it is clarified butter, with all the solids removed, taking out the casein/proteins) *

1/4 c. Honey *

1/4 c. Agave Syrup *

2 Eggs, beaten *

* denotes items we used that are organic

Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl. Mix wet ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients into dry ones until combined. Do not over mix. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake 50-60 minutes. Remove from loaf pan and cool on wire rack.

Guess what?! I do not miss the gluten, the sugar, or anything else in this pumpkin bread! It is scrumptious.........so much so, that I imagine it will be gone mighty quickly. My daughter and I had it with lunch and it is on the menu to accompany our dinner as well.

Next, I want to find or come up with a good pie crust recipe that fits our requirements so that I can make some pumpkin pie for the holidays that everyone in the house can eat!