Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Walnut Bread

I love most everything pumpkin. I happened to pick up a newsletter by mayo clinic and to my delight I came across this recipe on Pumpkin Chocolate Chip bread. Next I looked the list of ingredients and the more I read, the more I knew it was the recipe that I cannot just forego without baking it atleast once. What sold me on this recipe was Buttermilk. I had my first memorable experience with buttermilk when I made this cake. It is my absolute favorite cake and I was convinced that buttermilk did the trick in giving it that moistness. So I baked the pumpkin chocolate chip bread recipe. I was the checkout counter with my pumpkin puree and the lady at the register assumed I was making pumpkin pie. I told her that yes, pumpkin pie, but first the pumpkin bread and she was like oh..great..with walnuts! And she that's when she put that ingredient into my mind and I thought, hmm...what if I added the walnuts to the chocolate chips..how will that turn out. Well..I experimented with adding a 1/4 cup of walnuts to the recipe and it did not disappoint me. The bread came out absolutely great and perfectly moist...just how I like it.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Walnut Bread
Adapted from Mayo Clinic Newsletter

Ingredients
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1and1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1 T canola oil
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup walnuts

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray and coat with flour. Mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves together in a small bowl. In a large bowl, beat pumpkin puree, brown sugar, buttermilk, egg and oil together. Add the flour to the pumpkin mixture, stirring just until moistened (do not overmix). Add the chocolate chips and walnuts and mix until evenly distributed throughout the batter. Pour into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for about 10 mins and turn out onto a cooling rack. Serves 16.

In case you were curious, I happened to also have the nutrional analysis for this recipe.

Nutritional analysis per serving: calories 130, fat 2.5 g, saturated fat 1 g, trans fat 0 g, carbohydrate 26g, cholesterol 15 mg, sodium 190 mg, fiber 2g

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

This was another item we made as part of the class final. In comparision to the Petit Four and the Opera Cake, this was definitely a breeze to make. The components of this pie include: Oreo cookie crust, chocolate peanut butter pastry cream filling, topped with Chantilly Creme and chocolate flakes.

Gateau L'Opera

Opera cake was another component of our final exam. The cake comprises of the Joconde Cake, which is an almond sponge cake, layered with coffee french buttercream, chocolate ganache, coffee rum syrup and chocolate glaze. This part of the final was going to take the longest to make, hence the preparations for it started the earliest. Making a sponge cake has always been a chanllenge for me, due to delicacy of the batter and the care it takes in folding it. However, once the sponge is made well, it is a breeze to make the Coffee French Buttercream, Chocolate Ganache and Coffee Rum Syrup. Once all that in place, next is to layer the cake and freeze it until ready to glaze and cut it. After the cake is glazed it goes back in the freezer for the glaze to set before the slices are cut. Slicing this cake into its perfect 2 in. x 2 in. slices is a bit en-nerving for me. But with a chef's knife in hand and a good ruler, this could be accomplished. I still need work in the area of cutting those perfect 2 x 2 slices. Once that is taken care of, the cake is finished with piping the 'L'Opera' and topped with gold leaf. This cake is the traditional form of it, and to my delight, there are variations of these cakes which I of course, found on the repressed pastry chef blog, here. This cake is well worth the work and care that goes into its prepartions.