This week’s recipes are from the latter part of the 20th Century, but they are so good I wanted to share them with you now.
Pumpkin Bread
If you’re looking for a delicious pumpkin bread recipe, try this one (pictured above) from Chef Jennifer Segal of Once Upon A Chef .
The recipe was clipped from a magazine over fifty years ago by her grandmother, making it a treasured family memory. It’s delicious, tender, flavorful and a beautiful color. (Click link above for the recipe and to read about the history).
Pumpkin Muffins
Thirty years ago I was a baker at Sarabeth’s Restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue in New York.
On weekends lines were out the door to snag a coveted table for breakfast or brunch.
Working the early shift on Sunday mornings meant leaving my house at around 4am to get to the bakery well before 5am to start baking.
In the city that never sleeps, I’d cross paths with Saturday night revelers just on their way home from a night out. Once inside the bakery, a very sweet and talented baker who had worked there for years would already have everything set up — ovens pre-heating, pounds of butter and pallets of eggs out of the refrigerator, coffee brewing for staff.
I was the nervous newbie and to this day I’m grateful for the guidance he gave me and his great sense of humor that laughed off my (many) mistakes.
Everyone in the bakery at that hour worked in silence, but the radio was always set on Salsa, the music keeping the energy high for this small group of sleepy people who made absurd quantities of baked goods before 8am.
The signature item at Sarabeth’s was and is the famous Pumpkin Muffin. These muffins are delicious, filled with raisins and topped with sunflower seeds. They are among my favorite things to bake and to eat and look beautiful on a breakfast table.
Here’s the link:
Note: Follow the recipe directions carefully and you’ll have successful, delicious results.
Sarabeth’s Pumpkin Muffins via Epicurious
See you Friday for a visit to the late 19th/early20th century and a beloved cookie.
See you then!
Jolene
Credits and Sources:
Photos: Jolene
Oh, Jolene, I think we may have crossed paths many times in the past. 30 years ago I was living on the upper west side in a shoebox that I loved and Sarabeth's was my absolute favorite restaurant for Sunday brunch. I would save up my money just to go there! And the pumpkin muffins were heaven! Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Will definitely be making these.
Thank you, Jolene. Lovely post.
As a Brit, I have never had pumpkin bread. Or pumpkin pie. All things pumpkiny have passed me by.
I am fully aware of how malnourished and joyless my experience of the world is as a result. But...they don't serve them here. Pumpkins aren't so much a thing for eating in the UK. I've found it impossible to stumble across them (especially these last two years I've been in Scotland). And it seems this is a national problem: https://bakeryinfo.co.uk/finished-goods/thanksgiving-why-wont-brits-eat-pumpkin-pie/625590.article
This needs to change (at least when it comes to me, I can't speak for Britain). I need to step up into the light. Today is the day I find out where good pumpkin bread is served in Scotland, and I'm asking if they deliver. Today.
I will, however, pass along the bread/cake I *did* grow up with as a kid in Yorkshire, because I feel about it in the way that you feel about pumpkin bread. In case you've never encountered it, I welcome you to the rich, sticky glory that is Yorkshire Parkin:
https://traditionalhomebaking.com/yorkshire-parkin/