Baking Pumpkin Bread

If the kids ask to help in the kitchen I find a way to let them. Sometimes I hesitate. It’s always so messy, and slightly stressful to manage a 2 year old with flour. But I find a way.

Yesterday we made some pumpkin bread.

As we gathered our ingredients the kids asked to smell stuff. Ground ginger, fresh ground nutmeg (which looks so cool on the inside) and vanilla… They could not get enough of the vanilla. Then I noticed we had a lonely left over vanilla bean from when Uncle Evan cooked us crème brûlée. So we chopped it open and checked it out.

Then we brought out our trusty scale. It’s essential to us for baking and it helps the kids since they can’t quite master the “scoop and scrape” of a measuring cup.

I told Lou to keep adding flour until the number got to 10 (I said ounces, but that means nothing to her at this point.)

It worked great, and as always it was messy.

And the bread was delicious.

The recipe is from the Cooks Illustrated Baking Book.

Our scale is rated highly with them too. We are such Cooks Illustrated fanboys.