I am feeling slightly seasonal today. It's rather unusual because, with me, it's mostly chocolate all-year round when it comes to baking treats. Chocolate's my "season". But I had an urge to bake with pumpkin - something simple and warming, which had me thinking of a loaf cake. So without further ado, here's the pumpkin-chocolate chip loaf cake I baked up the other day.
I decided to split the batter among 3 smaller loaf pans and share a couple of my mini loaves. It's a great way to spread a little Fall cheer around. And I was very happy with the result of this bake - I ended up with a moist cake (not dry and dense, like I sometimes fear with loaf cakes/breads like these) with a good dose of spice and a nice helping of chocolate sweetness from miniature chocolate chips floating throughout. You know I had to pick a recipe with chocolate!
Incidentally, today is the first day of Fall! This is definitely the fun part of the changing seasons...when the temperatures and colors around you start to change, and your taste buds start to change with it. You see pumpkins, squashes, and root vegetables taking over, and you find yourself craving winter spices.
And speaking of spices, I didn't have the pumpkin pie spice called for in this recipe and I didn't want to buy it so I used what I had on hand, which ended up being a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. I had plenty of warm spice flavors from that mix.
