Whole Grain Pumpkin Bread/Muffins

Source: based on a recipe from recipelink.com

1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup mild molasses
1 eggs, well beaten
1/2 can pumpkin (Libby’s) (16 oz)
1 cups flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup of any combination of the following: wheat bran, flaxmeal, oatbrean, wheat germ
1 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup of chopped pecans (increase to 1/2 cup or more)
raisins

For bread (yields 2 loaves): Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 2 loaf pans.Beat oil, brown sugar, and molasses until well blended. Blend in egg and pumpkin. Stir flours, bran, wheat germ, soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt into mixture just until moistened. Fold in nuts.Fill pans and bake about 1 hour, until pick comes out clean. Cool on rack. Better if served the day after cooking.This bread freezes well.

For mini-muffins (yields 48): Bake at 375º for 12 minutes.

My notes: I halved the original recipe and made a few other minor adjustments. Halving the whole grains was a little trickier (trying to halve 1/3 cup), so I added up the wheat bran, oat bran and wheat germ amounts, which equaled one cup and reduced it by half, to 1/2 cup. I did not play around with the fat in this recipe since many whole grain recipes can come out quite dry. The crumb was moist and very tender. In order to keep it a bit healthier, I used canola oil instead of butter - at least this way the fat is not saturated. I think this could use more pecans - I'd increase it to 1/2 cup next time, maybe more.

I talked about this recipe HERE.