Vegan Pumpkin Bulgur Beer Bread

Well, No Nonsense November is off to a rocking start! After making that post, I decided to spend the last day of October living out those principles.

With some delicious oats and a book:

That’s a concoction of raw cocoa, unsweetened coconut, rolled oats, cinnamon, stevia and a splash of unsweetened almond milk.

I had a friendly face accompany me:

And the two of us spent an amazing hour outside, gearing up for the day. After hitting the grocery store and doing a little housekeeping, it was time to tackle the Foodie Fights challenge.

Foodie Fights is a fun, blog-style Throwdown, in which people submit the idea for one ingredient (I submitted pumpkin) and the organizers submit the idea for a second ingredient (in this case, bulgur wheat).

The judges’ decisions are based on these criteria:

Most Important:  Which would you rather eat?

Also Important:  Creativity – Is it an original recipe?  Did they make something unexpected?

Less Important but still Important: Is it a good overall Blog post.   Is the method explained well?  Is there humor?  Good photography?

I brainstormed all sorts of ideas — a soup? Some kind of protein-based entree? But, in the end, I decided to make something I’m calling:

Vegan Pumpkin Bulgur Beer Bread

Here’s the beauty of the recipe. I am a terrible baker. This came out perfectly, in three forms: bread, muffins and a cake. It is also vegan, highly organic (and could be completely organic, based on your shopping list), has a perfect fall flavor and is husband approved.

Luckily, I got pictures of the process and the finished product before Lucas got his greedy hands on it.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2C whole wheat flour
• 1C all-purpose flour
• 1C oat flour
• 2 Tsp salt
• 2 Tsp baking soda
• 1 Tsp baking powder
• 1 Tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 Tsp allspice
• 1 C water
• 1/2 C bulgur wheat
• 2 1/2 C sugar
• 2/3 C applesauce
• 2/3 C beer (at room temperature)
• **note: I used pumpkin ale and it really tasted great!
• 1 (15oz) can of pumpkin
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Cooking spray

Technique:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep your baking pans by spraying them with cooking spray and lining them with foil (if necessary).

For my first batch, I wanted to test cooking times so I made six muffins, one round cake and one loaf.

You can use all AP flour if you’d like, or a mix, like I did! Sift the flour(s), salt, baking soda, baking powder and spices in a medium bowl then whisk together until the mix is light and mixed.

(click on the photos to view them in a larger window)

Bring your water to a boil, then pour over the bulgur wheat. The water will go over the top of the wheat at first, but after it sits for 10-15 minutes, the wheat will soak up the water and cook.

In the meantime, put the sugar into a bowl and add the applesauce, beer, pumpkin and vanilla. Mix it all together, then add the bulgur/water mixture. You don’t need a beater or blender for this — just mix it until smooth.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, then mix JUST until incorporated and no more!

Using an ice cream scoop, ladle even portions of the batter into your muffin tins, then split the remaining batter between the loaf pan and cake pan.

Bake at 350 degrees until a knife or toothpick comes out cleanly:

–Muffins 30 minutes

–Cake 30-40 minutes

–Loaf 40-50 minutes

Let your goodies cool on a wire rack, then enjoy!

Note: I used this recipe as a guide to proportions, but obviously made major changes.

Finished Recipe:

I have to say…this is pretty freaking delicious. If you separate this recipe into 30 servings (one muffin=one serving, then the cake and bread are each split into 12 servings), the nutritional data is not too bad:

Lucas can’t stop eating them, which is a great sign…especially since he’s brewing his own batch of pumpkin spice ale. If that works out, I’ll definitely whip up another batch of this bread with his booze!

Please let me know if you give these a try — I’m going to play with the ingredients a bit, and may substitute the bulgur with ground flaxseed, oats or even quinoa. I think this could also make good macaroons or even raw truffles, so I’m glad I figured out the basic recipe!

P.S. I just did a post for Examiner.com on using Pumpkin as a baking substitute. Check it out and make me one of your favorite examiners!