Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

I am really squeaking in this recipe at the last-minute here because Thanksgiving is tomorrow! Last November around this time I talked about the chocolate chip pumpkin bread my grandma makes every year, read about that here, and I wanted to check back in to share the details. For twenty-eight years of my life I was under the impression that this was a secret family recipe passed down by my great grandma. I thought she concocted it up in her kitchen many moons ago and we’ve all continued baking it up. Well, I thought this up until last Thanksgiving when I was sitting next to my grandma at the dessert table and I asked her about the recipe. She sort of laughed and said “no, my mother got the recipe for this pumpkin bread out of a newspaper.” So there’s that. Secret recipe or not, its definitley tradition to have pumpkin bread at Thanksgiving.

I love baking this bread during the entire fall season and wrapping it up for the perfect hostess gift! Here’s the, not-so-secret family recipe:

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
3/4 cup pumpkin
1 cup chocolate chips

instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter until light then gradually beat in sugar. Add vanilla and beat in eggs, one at a time. In a separate bowl, sift flour together with all dry ingredients. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and pumpkin puree to the creamed mixture beating it together until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips. Here you could also add in walnuts or raisins. Pour batter into greased and floured loaf pan. Scatter a handful of chocolate chips on top. Bake for one hour.

Enjoy!