Maple Pumpkin Bread With Maple Glazed Pepitas

Up until recently, Starbucks and I were very good friends. We had sleepovers, braided each others hair, talked about boys and cried together over all the other mean coffee places. Then one day, I cheated on my friendship with Starbucks. I found a NEW bff. It’s name was The Daily Grind. I played there one day on a whim and well, I’m ashamed to say, that after that, I never gave Starbucks coffee a second thought. Though every once in a while, I go back there for nostalgia’s sake. But Starbucks can’t make Milky Way Lattes; The Daily Grind can.

There’s one problem with this new relationship however. My new bff coffee place doesn’t sell baked goods. Oh, they have some wrapped stuff that was mass produced in somewhere like Taiwan, the best place ever to get fancy pastries :-p  But they don’t have the pumpkin bread you can get at Starbucks.  I can’t go to Starbucks anymore though. They all look at me funny, like I’m wearing a big red letter A on my chest. It’s just too awkward, too painful remembering the good times *sobs a little and takes a sip of my Milky Way Latte to calm down*

So what did I do? I made my own. Yes, you heard that right, Starbucks!!! I don’t need your  high priced pumpkin bread anymore! I have no reason to come crawling back to you groveling for forgiveness just so that I can sneak a piece of pumpkin bread. Buahahaaaaaaa!!! Guess what else? My pumpkin bread? It’s better than yours. Yep. Better. It’s moist and spicy and pumpkiny (yes, that too is now a word. I swear, the world needs ME to revise the dictionary. Language would be so much more interesting.) with a hint of maple in the bread. It’s also not as overly sweet as your bread and MINE is covered in sweet/salty maple glazed pepitas. Take THAT, Starbucks!

Sorry. I’m calm now. You all know how those break up moments can be, right?

You know the drill….

Maple Pumpkin Bread With Maple Glazed Pepitas

• 3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 7 eggs
• 4 tablespoons molasses
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 teaspoons maple flavoring
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 16 ounce can pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
• 1 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup dry roasted Pepita’s
• 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9 inch loaf pans (or use a product such as Bakers Joy and spray them)
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, regular sugar and spices.
3. In another large bowl, at low speed with a hand mixer, combine the eggs, molasses, brown sugar, vanilla extract and maple flavoring. Mix well. Pour in the vegetable oil and the can of pumpkin in and mix well.
4. Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ones and mix at low speed just until well combined. It’s fine if there are some small lumps left.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the two loaf pans.
6. In a small bowl, toss the pepitas with the maple syrup. Sprinkle evenly between the two pans of batter.
7. Bake at 350 degrees until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean, with at most a few loose crumbs on it.
8. Cool in the pans set on a rack for five minutes.
9. Loosen the breads from the pans by running a butter knife around the edges then turn the loaves out onto the rack to finish cooling.

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