While most people of think of pumpkins for pie late in the year—I shared each homemade component over several weeks last year in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon—many of my homegrown sugar pumpkins end up in less labor-intensive dishes, like the quick bread recipe I share this week. I explain in my column how “quick” can be a bit misleading, since it still takes time to put the recipe together and an hour for the bread to bake, but compared with a yeast or sourdough bread or an all-scratch pie, it’s a speedy creation.

Quick breads have lots of advantages over other baked goods: they’re easy to store and transport, and I generally create two-loaf recipes so that I can slice and then freeze one to enjoy later, piece by piece. This time of year, the extra loaf also makes an easy holiday gift.

Learn more about making quick breads and get the complete recipe for Pumpkin Quick Bread in my column.

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Pumpkin is just one of many flavors I bake into quick breads. They’re so adaptable that I created a ratio-based recipe that lets you use all sorts of ingredients. A key feature of this master recipe and my recipes for specific quick breads is that I replace much of the oil or butter in standard recipes with homemade applesauce. It not only reduces the fat in the recipe but also adds flavor, texture, and an appealing moist density to the loaves.

Here are just a few other quick bread recipes on the blog. You can find more in the recipe index, including nonloaves like scones, biscuits, coffee cake, and muffins.

• Cranberry-Orange Quick Bread
• Gingerbread Loaf
• Zucchini Sesame Bread

A recent sourdough guide I wrote for The Old Farmer’s Almanac website includes a quick bread recipe that adds a bit of sourdough for flavor: Applesauce Walnut Bread. This historical recipe from the almanac’s archives calls for 200% hydration sourdough starter, but when I tested it with 100% hydration starter (the basis for Twice as Tasty sourdough recipes), the loaf came out beautifully without other adjustments.

You can learn more about making and sharing other edible holiday gifts in this blog post.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.