Pumpkin chocolate chip bread

Recipe adapted from an old Andronico's Market weekly circular:

Ingredients

• 1 cup canola oil
• 2-2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups (or 1 15-oz can) pumpkin puree
• 1-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 3-1/3 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chopped toasted pecans
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Position rack in center of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit. Lightly butter two 9x5 loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil and the sugar. Beat in the eggs, pumpkin, and milk. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, stirring just to blend, then mix in the pecans and chocolate chips.

3. Spoon the batter into the greased loaf pans. Bake the bread for about 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Remove the bread from the oven and cool it on a rack.

Sweet Potato Variation

• I roughly halved the recipe and replaced pumpkin puree with sweet potato puree. About 1 lb of sweet potatoes, baked until tender, will yield 1 cup of puree.
• Instead of the spices listed, I used 1 heaping Tbsp of pumpkin pie spice.
• I also reduced the oil to 1/3 cup -- instead of the 1/2 cup that halving the recipe would have required.
• These changes still resulted in a tasty, moist loaf.
• Leftover slices are tasty toasted.