Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

The boil began Tuesday. The temperatures had cooperated through the weekend — mid-thirties days, low twenties nights, the freeze-thaw cycle that maples need to push the sap up — and by Sunday the gathering tank was holding sixty gallons and the pan was ready. I fired the evaporator at seven Tuesday morning, the wood crackling under the firebox, the sap going on the pan in its first thin layer, the smell that has not changed in any sugarhouse in Vermont in two hundred years beginning to fill the air. The smell is what I do this for, partly. The syrup is the product. The smell is the experience. The two are not the same.

I boiled all day Tuesday and again Wednesday — sixteen hours total, the long patient watch over the pan, the constant addition of fresh sap from the holding tank as the pan reduced, the careful skimming of the foam, the thermometer creeping toward the seven-degrees-above-boiling point that means syrup. The first finished syrup came off the pan at four Wednesday afternoon, drawn off into the felt filter and into the canning pot for the hot pack, the color a beautiful early-season gold, the flavor clean and bright in the way that early-season syrup is, before the developing season pushes the color toward amber and the flavor toward darker richer notes. About two and a half gallons from the first run. Not bad. The season is just starting.

David came up Wednesday afternoon to help with the bottling — driving the forty minutes from Montpelier without being asked, which is the kind of thing he does in maple season because he understands the rhythm of the operation and because he likes the smell of the sugarhouse and because he knows I need help even when I do not ask for it. We bottled together at the worktable in the sugarhouse, the canning jars hot from the dishwasher, the syrup ladled in from the canning pot, the lids screwed on firm but not too tight, the jars set on the cooling rack to seal as they cooled. We did not say much. We did not need to. The work has its own conversation.

Late in the afternoon David said: dad, this is good syrup. I said: it is. He said: as good as last year. I said: maybe better. He nodded. We went on bottling. There is no higher compliment David gives me than the brief professional assessment of the syrup at the bottling table, and I value it more than he knows and more than I would tell him. When we finished he loaded a case into his car (he takes a case every spring, distributes most of it to friends in Montpelier as gifts, considers it part of the family economy) and drove home in the late afternoon light, and I stood at the sugarhouse door and watched his taillights disappear down the road and thought about the year I taught him to drill the holes when he was eight, and the year he taught Teddy to drill the holes when Teddy was eight, and the long unbroken line of Bergstrom men learning this work from each other in this exact place. The line is not over. The line continues. The line is what I am for.

After David drove home with his case in the back seat, I went inside and found I was not ready to be still yet — still humming from the boil, still smelling the sugarhouse on my clothes. I wanted to use the syrup for something that same evening, not save it, not sell it, just crack a jar and pour. This bread is what I made. It is not a maple recipe exactly, but a jar of that first early-season gold over a warm slice of it is as honest a thing as I know how to put on a table, and it felt right to do it alone and quietly with the last light going out the window.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 60 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min | Servings: 10 slices

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water or orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus extra for topping

Instructions

Heat oven. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.
Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Set aside.
Combine wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, water (or orange juice), and vanilla extract until smooth and well combined.
Fold together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir gently until just combined — do not overmix. A few streaks of flour remaining is fine. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Fill and top. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and spread evenly. Scatter a small handful of additional chocolate chips over the top if desired.
Bake. Bake for 55–65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs. If the top begins to brown too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 40 minutes.
Cool. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack. Slice warm or at room temperature. Serve with a generous pour of fresh maple syrup if you have it.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread — Something Worth Pouring That First Jar Over