Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread -- Baked From the Abundance of a Full Root Cellar

The root cellar is full. This is one of the satisfying sentences of the year, the one that means everything went well enough and the land gave enough and the work of summer and fall paid out into something concrete. I spent a morning doing the accounting — shelves of dried beans, jars of preserved tomatoes and dried chiles, the winter squash arranged by size, dried herbs in bundles, nuts from the food forest, dried mushrooms in paper bags. The two deer River took last week hanging. It looks like winter ought to look when you've been paying attention all year.

The practical guide is going to a small Cherokee press in Tahlequah that focuses on traditional knowledge documentation. Grace connected me to them in September and I sent the manuscript and had a long call with the editor, a woman named Lena who was businesslike and knowledgeable and asked questions about the guide that were better than any question anyone else had asked. She wants to publish it in the spring. There will be a small print run and a digital version and I think that's exactly right — not a mass audience but the right audience, people who are building something like what I built and need a companion for it.

Caleb came by to see the root cellar because I'd told him about it and he's building one on his land this winter. He walked through it slowly and asked about the shelving and the ventilation and the temperature management and I answered everything. Before he left he stood in the doorway for a moment and said: "Four years." I said yes. He said: "I still can't believe it." I said I could believe it fine from where I was standing. He looked at me for a moment and then laughed — a real one, the kind that comes from somewhere deep — and went home.

After Caleb left and I closed up the root cellar for the evening, I wanted to do something with my hands that honored what the shelves were holding — and a loaf of pumpkin cream cheese bread felt exactly right. The winter squash have been piling up since September, and turning one into something warm and fragrant for the kitchen is its own kind of accounting: a way of saying the land gave enough, and here is the proof. This is the bread I bake when I want the house to smell like everything went well.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 60 min | Total Time: 1 hr 20 min | Servings: 10 slices

Ingredients

• For the bread:
• 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 cup pumpkin puree (from roasted winter squash or canned)
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• For the cream cheese swirl:
• 6 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x5-inch loaf pan and line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the long sides for easy removal.
2. Make the cream cheese filling. In a medium bowl, beat the softened cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar together until smooth. Add the egg yolk and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and mix until just combined. Set aside.
3. Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
4. Mix wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract until well combined.
5. Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined — do not overmix. A few small lumps are fine.
6. Layer the batter. Pour half the pumpkin batter into the prepared loaf pan and spread evenly. Spoon the cream cheese filling over the batter in an even layer. Top with the remaining pumpkin batter and spread carefully to cover.
7. Create the swirl. Run a butter knife or skewer through the batter in a gentle figure-eight pattern two or three times to create a swirl. Do not over-swirl.
8. Bake. Bake for 55–65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread (avoiding the cream cheese layer) comes out clean. If the top browns too quickly, tent loosely with foil after 40 minutes.
9. Cool. Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then lift out using the parchment overhang and transfer to a wire rack. Cool at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 310 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 42g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 210mg