Pumpkin + sage + butter = yummy

[caption id="attachment_193" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The delicious pumpkin bread-cake. It's moist and not too sweet. And it smells divine"][/caption]

This marks another first for me. Have always shied away from making breads because it sounded like a lot of work -- kneading and kneading and more kneading? Urmmm, no thanks.

Plus, I have an inexplicable fear of cooking with yeast.

Then I came upon this fantastic recipe for pumpkin bread from Martha Stewart (yes, I do love her) in her magazine. It doesn't require kneading or yeast and just reading through the list of ingredients made me salivate.

And it sounded pretty easy to make.

Usually, Martha's recipes just need to be followed to a T. With this bread though, instead of dividing the mixture into 8 small loaf pans, I put it all in one big loaf pan and as a result I had to bake it for 20 mins longer than the 30 mins she prescribed. I also had no ground clove ( you need 1/8 tsp) so i omitted that. Otherwise, it was fantastic.

[caption id="attachment_192" align="aligncenter" width="150" caption="Straight outta the oven. "][/caption]

(Almost) Martha's Pumpkin, Sage and Brown-Butter Quick Bread

6 ounces (about 170gms) unsalted butter plus a little more to butter the pan

1 cup fresh sage, thinly sliced

1 and 2/3 all purpose flour plus a little for dusting pan

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (I used powder as I did not have fresh nutmeg)

1 tsp salt

1 cup solid packed pumpkin (from can)

1 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

Heat oven at 180. Grease loaf pan with butter and dust it with flour.

Melt butter over med-low fire. Add sage strips and cook till butter turns golden brown -- should take about 5-8 mind. Let cool.

Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg and whisk together with salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk pumpkin, eggs, sugar and the browned butter with sage. Once smooth and well mixed, add flour mix gradually till all incorporated.

Transfer to loaf pan. Smoothen top and bake for about 55 mins or till knife comes out smooth.

Let cool. Garnish with some  fresh sage leaves.