Pumpkin Bread Recipe {low sugar}

Contributed by Anna of Not Knowing Where

Happy autumn! It's been over a month since I've posted at The Cheap and Choosy. So many hard things, and so many good things were piled into September and October. I'm happy to be back, with a recipe that I invented last weekend. 

For the last two years, I've been attempting to ease sweets out of my diet. It makes me a happier person and seriously cuts down on the mood swings. I love fall/winter foods, particularly pumpkin. And since pumpkin usually comes in a super sweet form, I wanted to create a lower sugar alternative to satisfy my taste buds. Here it is for you wonderful folks. I hope that you enjoy. In case you're scared by the "low sugar" description, my entire family has happily eaten this bread. Don't worry! It really is good. 

Anna's Low Sugar Pumpkin Bread

Dry ingredients:

3 cup flour (white or whole grain)

1/2 t. salt

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/2 t. ground ginger

1/4 t. ground nutmeg

Wet ingredients:

1/4 cup shortening or softened butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1-15 oz can pumpkin

1 c. Milk + 1 T. Vinegar 

You will need 2 mixing bowls and a liquid measuring cup. In the first (smaller) mixing bowl, add all the dry ingredients and stir together. In the second mixing bowl, put the wet ingredients. In an ideal world, you should pull out your hand mixer and thoroughly whip your wet ingredients together. But in my imperfect world, I stir it around violently with a wooden spoon, and it's never been bad (Who has time to clean a mixer?). 

In the liquid measuring cup, put 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Add milk until you have a total of one cup. If you keep buttermilk in your refrigerator, just use 1 cup of that and forget about the vinegar. 

Go back to your big mixing bowl with the wet ingredients. Alternately add the dry mixture and the milk mixture, stirring between each addition (or beating with a hand mixer if you prefer). 

Grease and flour a large loaf pan. Pour in the batter, and cook at 350 degrees F for about 65 minutes.