Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

It's only the 2nd of October and I already can't get enough of fall... AH, I wish it was fall all year round so that it wouldn't seem so strange eating pumpkin-y things when the leaves aren't falling off the trees. 

This is my all-time favorite pumpkin recipe I think. One, because it's easy and impossible to mess up. And two, because it's so moist and yummy. So good that I feel like I could do some damage to one loaf in one sitting.

You can make this bread without the chocolate chips...with the chocolate chips...with white chocolate chips...nuts...anything. I'm telling you, it's good plain too; but with just a few chocolate chips in each slice...it's wonderful. You don't even need butter.

I've even tried "healthy-ing" up this recipe on a few occasions, and I still think that it turns out great. For example, I've substituted sugar-free apple sauce for the butter (though the butter is minimal anyways), whole wheat flour for the all-purpose flour, and honey or maple syrup for the brown sugar. Like I said, it's a hard one to mess up.

Yum!


Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 c. flour
• 1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1-1/3 c. pumpkin puree
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 c. buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp. butter, softened
• 1 c. chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In medium sized bowl, mix pumpkin, brown sugar, buttermilk, egg, vanilla, and butter.
3. In separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
5. Fold in chocolate chips. 
6. Pour into lightly greased loaf pan.
7. Bake for 1 hour.