Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread & Care Packages

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread and fall care packages! I dropped my second daughter off at college last month and now that my tears have *almost* dried, I can start putting together her first care package. I used this incredibly moist and flavorful Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread as a starting point because:

🍁It’s fall!

❄️It freezes well! (I put the loaf, frozen solid, right into the package before dropping it in the mail.)

📦And it lasts for days! (So it will still taste amazing when it gets to her.)

🎃It’s the best pumpkin bread I’ve ever had!

Lately I’ve been thinking about care packages and how they’re more important than ever because so many of us are going through something right now. So if you’re looking for a small project this week, think of someone who could use a reminder that they’re loved and remembered and put a few things together to drop off or mail to them. If you tag #2020carepackage, we can see each other’s ideas! Who couldn’t use a little extra love right now?❤️

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Making this bread is very straight forward, you don’t even need an electric mixer. Just whisk everything together in a large bowl until smooth. This is my very favorite Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread, it’s incredibly moist and flavorful! And if you’d rather make muffins, this batter works really well as muffins too. You can’t go wrong!

Bake until the bread is cooked through and the crust is golden. Let cool completely before cutting. I think this bread tastes even better the next day, which makes it a great bread for mailing in a care package. Like I mentioned earlier, I like to freeze the bread solid before mailing. Then, I take it out of the freezer on Monday morning and take it straight to the post office. That way by the time the bread is delivered, it’s still fresh.

Skip to the bottom of this post for the recipe, or keep reading if you’d like some ideas on putting together a care package.

Care Package

In my daughter’s package I put an inexpensive sweater I found at Target, some of her favorite snacks, a Halloween snack mix her little sister made for her, and of course the pumpkin bread.

But care packages don’t have to be complicated, they don’t even have to be mailed! Just drop a few cookies, or even a store bought treat, on the porch of a neighbor.

My girls like to make this Halloween trail mix every fall, so it seemed right to put it in my daughter’s package. Basically, they just throw all of their favorite sweet and salty treats together: butter and mini pretzels, popcorn, marshmallows, candy corn, M&M’s, and chocolate chips. Couldn’t be easier!

My Daughter

Since the day my daughter could talk, she’s always believed the best in people and situations. And do you know what? She’s usually right. I miss her and her influence in our home, but am so happy for her and all of the opportunities she has ahead of her!

Once when she was very young, we were driving in the car when a truck cut us off and sped around us. I said a few choice words about the driver, but my daughter said, “I bet he’s just in a hurry because someone is sick and he needs to get to the hospital fast.” Maybe she was right….

And just a few days before she moved to college, I had it reaffirmed in my mind that her natural reflex is to always believe the best. We have a family rule that if the kids leave their shoes in inconvenient places, we can put their shoes on the front porch for them to retrieve later (think about 5 kids leaving their shoes all around the house, it adds up fast!). My daughter left her shoes in the middle of the kitchen and “someone” put them on the front porch. When she was packing to move, she asked me if I had seen her shoes and I told her I had seen them on the front porch. She cheerfully grabbed them and walked back inside admiring her shoes and saying, “Ah, that’s so sweet of someone to clean my shoes for me!” It was probably the rain (haha!), but she always believes the best!!

Here’s the recipe for the bread, I hope you love it as much as we do!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

1 (16 oz) can of pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2/3 cup water
3 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon table salt
2 1/2 cup all purpose white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and line three 9 x 5″ loaf pans with parchment paper or baking spray (such as Baker’s Joy).

In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, oil, eggs, and water until well combined. Add sugar and whisk until well combined. Add baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, and flours all at once. Whisk until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips.

Bake 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of each loaf comes out clean. Sometimes the loaves cook at different rates, so pull them out as they finish up.

Let the loaves cool in their pans for 10 minutes and then remove and let cool completely on a rack.

Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for up to 3 days, or frozen up to 3 months. This bread tastes even better the second day!

This batter can also be made into muffins! Just line a muffin tin with liners and fill 2/3 full. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.