My Vegan daughter who recently turned 20 years old was shopping for Thanksgiving and picked up a few things she felt we would need. When Turkey day (Tofurkey day) arrived, she was excited to see I'd made Vegan Sweet Potato pies from scratch. She did lament the fact that I didn't use the two 29oz cans of Pumpkin Pie filling that she'd purchased and was sad that the noble pumpkin (Calabasa to our Spanish speaking friends) didn't grace our table. Tonight she was kidding me about playing Fable III for almost 7 straight hours and wondering if I had done anything productive today.

(in my defense, I was playing under her gamer name and her friends kept hounding her to play Left 4 Dead 2... but she wasn't on and they were getting persnickety about her lack of interest in their shared gamer friendships. *SIGH*. She offered to set up a profile just for me on her Xbox 360... so I was playing on her account for 2 hours and my own game (which I restarted) for 5 hours). :P

I sprung into action (which at 40 means that I grunted deeply while semi-standing. Silently begging my muscles to work and my joints to stop aching, all to no avail.) I quickly searched the misinformation superhighway for a Vegan Pumpkin Bread recipe. I came across quite a few they all mentioned GOOEY results. I chose the one with the least complaints about goo and proceeded to modify it as follows.

Wet Ingredients
15-16 oz Pumpkin Puree
1/2 cup Apple Sauce
1/4 cup Canola Oil (Veggie Oil or Vegan Butter Substitute melted would work also)
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 Egg Substitute

For the egg substitute I used NRG Egg Replacer, but you can also use 1 tablespoon Ground Flax Seeds + 3 tablespoons water ( mix separately until it thickens slightly)

Dry Ingredients
3 cups Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Dark Brown Sugar (packed)
3/4 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
2 teaspoons Pumpkin Pie Spice

Toppings & extra froo froo stuff
I used pecans.. but just go wild and add raisins or dried cherries or craisins or apple chunks or roasted pumpkin seeds (that sounds like my next batch) or cut a little flour and add a little oatmeal. or sprinkle pralines on top... just have fun.

Spices
Experiment folks. This recipe works like a charm.. but yours may be even better with an adventurous addition of Cloves or Allspice or even replacing the Pumpkin Pie Spice with Apple Pie Spice... Get out your culinary paint brush and paint.

Flour it's up to you regarding the type. Whole Wheat flour would probably be fantastic. I happened to use All Purpose which is a standard blend of flours that offers a middle of the road gluten content and pretty predictable performance across the brand spectrum.

You'll need
a sifter (or something to sift with, not sifting is really not an option for successful baking)
a muffin pan or a 9 inch bread pan (pretty standard size)
at least 3 big bowls and 1 small one to mix the egg replacer in
measuring spoons
measuring cup(s)

Yield 8-9 Huge cupcakes or mini-loafs or 1 Nine inch Bread Loaf (TALL LOAF FOLKS)

Step 1: Dry Ingredients

One of the "secrets" to baking is to make sure that all of your dry ingredients are fully mixed and dispersed before adding them into your wet mixture. This goes doubly for a soft sweet bread. Gluten (think GLUE) production increases as you work a bread dough. For flaky fall apart biscuits you just barely mix them all together. For a chewy Sourdough Bread you mix it for a long time and then knead it until your forearms explode and your back aches. Soft sweet breads like this one only need to be stirred until the dry ingredients are mixed in. Please don't use a blender. You'll have a rubber hockey puck that smells great and sits in your stomach for two months.

Dry Ingredients
3 cups Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Dark Brown Sugar (packed)
3/4 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
2 teaspoons Pumpkin Pie Spice

Spices- Experiment folks. This recipe works like a charm.. but yours may be even better with an adventurous addition of Cloves or Allspice or even replacing the Pumpkin Pie Spice with Apple Pie Spice... Get out your culinary paint brush and paint.

Add chunks of apple or raisins or craisins or dried cherries or dried whatever.. just go MAD!!! I sprinkled Pecans on the top... cuz I'm cool like that...

With regards to Flour, it's up to you regarding the type. Whole Wheat flour would probably be fantastic. I happened to use All Purpose which is a standard blend of flours that offers a middle of the road gluten content and pretty predictable performance across the brand spectrum.

Mixing
1. Put all of your flour into your first bowl and set it aside.
2. Put the Sugar, Dark Brown Sugar, Salt, Spices and Baking Soda into your second bowl.
3. Sift the contents of the "Sugar" bowl into your third bowl. The brown sugar may clump up a little bit.. don't worry it'll break down in the liquid just fine.
4. Put a cup of each into your sifter (depending on sifter size) and sift it all into the second bowl which you emptied in step 2.
5. Set your dry ingredients aside.

Step 2: Wet Ingredients

Wet Ingredients
15-16 oz Pumpkin Puree
1/2 cup Apple Sauce
1/4 cup Canola Oil (Veggie Oil or Vegan Butter Substitute melted would work also)
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 Egg Substitute

For the egg substitute I used NRG Egg Replacer, but you can also use 1 tablespoon Ground Flax Seeds + 3 tablespoons water ( mix separately until it thickens slightly)

The wet ingredients are kind of like the dry ingredients in that a thorough mixing of them before incorporating the dry stuff will always help make a wonderful bread.

The Egg Substitute is a dry ingredient that must be made into a liquid in a separate bowl. you want it to gel and give some extra textural support to the bread. The eggs help emulsify and bind the bread, which with soft breads keeps it from becoming a pile of wet bits.

More info than you want on the purpose of eggs in baking can be found here. (http://baking-management.com/rd_applications/bm_imp_8806/index.html?imw=Y)

Mixing
1. mix your egg replacer in a separate bowl and allow it to set up until it thickens slightly
2. put everything else into a bowl and mix. no need for a mixer, a fork is dandy.
3. add your egg replacer and mix it all together.

Step 3: Final Step

Putting it all together.

1. preheat your oven to 400F.
2. add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of your dry mix to your wet mix.
3. stir until the dry ingredients are just absorbed.
4. repeat steps 2 & 3 until it's all mixed together.
5. grease or spray your cooking vessel.
6. fill the cupcake tins to the lip of the cup and it will probably expand 1.5 to 2 inches over the top of the muffin tin. Perfect shapes.
7. Put the bread into the 400F oven with your rack set at its lowest position over the bottom heating element(s)
8. set your timer for 10 minutes.

9. Wait 10 minutes...

10. reduce the oven heat to 350F and bake another 40-50 minutes.
11. At the 50 minute point (10 + 40), insert a toothpick or clean knife into the center of the loaf / muffin. if it has any goo on it (I did say to use a clean knife... so hopefully any goo would be from the bread.), keep checking at 5 minute intervals until the knife or toothpick come out with only tiny crumbs and nothing gooey or sticky on it.
12. Let the bread set for 5-10 minutes.

Enjoy! :)