Buckwheat Pumpkin Bread

"Hey, neat! Pumpkin bread! Can we try some?"

Sometimes, I forget that my husband hasn't been with me forever. We joke about it all the time; he forgot that I hadn't been with him in Latvia forever when I was living in Liepāja with him. In this case, we were at our favorite grocery store who had a sale on pumpkin bread. He'd never heard of it before, much less tried it, which I immediately promised to rectify.

Pumpkin bread, like its cousins zucchini bread and banana bread, is extremely popular here in Utah. I remember when our neighbor across the street from the house I lived in as a kid brought over zucchini bread shortly after we moved in from California. Mrs. Webb had zucchini plants and anyone who has ever tried growing zucchini knows what I mean when I say the damn plant grows like a weed. So, she made zucchini loaves for the whole neighborhood several times just to put a dent in the supply. I thought it was great and proceeded to snack on it every chance I had.

The trick was coming up with a recipe that wasn't too sweet. Many pumpkin breads and banana breads suffer from being tooth-rottingly sweet - I've seen recipes call for 3 cups or more of sugar for ONE LOAF. Way, way too sweet. And believe me, if it's too sweet for me, my husband won't make it through a bite. Since he's Latvian, he grew up loving sour foods, not sweet. Most of the commercial and restaurant desserts in America that he's tried are simply too sweet for him.

After a few revisions, I came up with this recipe which I feel has a good balance between sweet and spicy, with just the right amount of savory nuttiness

As for why I used a white sugar + molasses combo: this is how you substitute white sugar for brown when you run out unexpectedly! However, due to the beautiful color of the crust and crumb, I'm not sure I would use the brown sugar. I like the molasses' effect on the bread too much.