Staff appreciation gifts are ready!

The little girls were all pumped up to make homemade gifts for those folks at their school who take such good care of them. So we decimated the kitchen today in the name of love. Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Bread love, to be specific. And boy does it smell good! 

Mmmmm. The girls immediately ripped into one of the loaves (because Ro said they couldn’t possibly give something as a gift if they didn’t know whether it was good or not) and said “LOVE!” and “infinity thumbs up!”

Whew. With those enthusiastic stamps of approval, these little bundles will be delivered to school tomorrow for their teacher*, our friends in the office, the principal, the custodian, and the music teacher.

Now I think I’ll go nibble on the remaining crumbs of our sample loaf and call it dinner...

Pumpkin Chocolate-Chip Bread Ingredients 3 cups canned plain pumpkin puree 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil 4 cups white sugar 6 eggs 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves 1 cup Ghirardelli mini chocolate chips Directions Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease three 9x5” loaf pans. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, eggs, and chocolate chips. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir dry mixture into pumpkin mixture until well blended. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour (our loaves were done in exactly 49 mins). The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed. (Makes 3 loaves.)

(Printable recipe)

* Shhh, don’t tell, but she’ll get a humungo class gift and hand-written/hand-drawn cards from each kiddo on the last day of school – which is in two and a half days squeeeeeeal! The girls just wanted her to have their bread too.