Grampa Zach's Pumpkin Bread

One year ago today was an extremely emotional day for my family.  It was early Saturday morning and I was in the car with my two older sisters on our way to the salon to get our hair done for our big brother's wedding that afternoon.  We received a phone call from our mom as we were driving, informing us that our Grampa Zach had passed away over the night.  He's the father of nine children, so quite a few people experienced these double sided emotions throughout the day.  It is unfortunate that these two events overlapped with each other, but it was comforting to be surrounded by friends and family the entire day and we were all still able to properly celebrate the joyous occasion!

Growing up one of the foods that my mom always baked on a somewhat regular occasion was pumpkin bread.  The majority of the time when she made pumpkin bread, a loaf would go to Grampa Zach because it was one of his favorite foods.  While I love my Grampa, as a kid I always thought this was a little unfair because it cut back sometimes by half the amount of pumpkin bread left for for the six of us left in our immediate family (although I will admit, more often than not Grampa only got a little loaf).

I decided that it would only be appropriate to use my mom's pumpkin bread recipe and bake some  in honor of Grampa Zach.  I would gladly give Grampa both loaves if I could today.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup shortening
• 2 2/3 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups (1 15-16 oz can) mashed pumpkin
• 3 1/3 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Powdered sugar (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat over to 350 degrees.
2. Cream together shortening and sugar.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Sit in pumpkin.
5. Combine dry ingredients and add alternately with water.
6. Stir in vanilla.
7. Turn batter into greased loaf pans (2 large or 3 medium).
8. Bake for 45-60 minutes (depending on size of loaves).
9. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired after removing loaves from pans.

Happy Anniversary Zach and Kaci!