Bumpkin bread

Bumpkin bread was born on a dark and stormy night October of my junior year. For the first time, I lived in on-campus housing with an in-suite kitchen. My roommates and I were still irrationally excited about cooking for ourselves. It was the best of times, the age of wisdom, the epoch of belief. 

The problem was that my plans for nightly creative dinners had turned into Variations on a Theme of Penne with Vegetables. I’m a student — I have to study sometimes. But because it was October, my favorite month, I went to the trouble of converting a Pinterest pumpkin bread recipe from grams to cups. My friends are generally willing guinea pigs, so I tested the creation on them.

“It’s good,” my friend Daniel said. “But if you added a banana, then it would have banana and pumpkin…and it’d be bumpkin bread!”

“No,” said my roommate, Anna.

We ignored his wordplay on principle, but his suggestion sounded kind of amazing. A banana found its way into the pumpkin bread’s next incarnation. This made the dough — which is essentially already brownie batter — soupy, so of course we had to try again, and yet again, to fix the ingredient ratios. No one was upset about this.

We’re coming up on bumpkin bread’s first birthday, and it has matured enough to make its official public debut. I’m proud to announce that the final product is dense, gooey and loaded with chocolate chips and brown sugar. It makes your house smell like a Yankee Candle in the best possible way. It’s a perfect evening comfort food because, apparently, fall isn’t fall without pumpkin-infused everything.

As home baking goes, bumpkin bread is quick and dirty. Assembly time is 10 minutes from ingredients to oven. It has to bake for an hour, but look at it this way: That’s roughly the length of an episode of Psych. You’re a college student; you’re an excellent multitasker. Go forth and enjoy.

Bumpkin bread

Ingredients:

1⁄4 cup oil 

3⁄4 cup sugar 

1 mashed banana (the riper, the better) 

6.5 ounces (2/3 of a can) pumpkin puree

3 eggs

3⁄4 cup flour (or slightly more)

3⁄4 teaspoon salt

3⁄4 teaspoon baking soda

1⁄2 teaspoon nutmeg

3⁄4 cup chocolate chips, or a little more

1⁄4 cup brown sugar for topping

Instructions: 

Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk together oil, sugar, banana and pumpkin puree. Add eggs one at a time, making sure they are well combined. Fold in sifted flour, salt, baking soda and nutmeg. Add chocolate chips. Bake in regular loaf pan for an hour, sprinkling brown sugar on top after 45 minutes. Cool and serve.