Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin season awaits you with these Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread mini loaves. With all that fall flavor, it will be hard to share!

ME BEFORE THE RECIPE…

So Emry had another “family craft” assignment from school. I was hoping those would magically disappear with her graduation from kindergarten. No such luck. Apparently positive family bonding time is still a character building priority in the first grade as well. Who knew?

Except I don’t know why teachers assume that these crafting projects are catalysts for joyful family gatherings. Next time I should attach a hidden camera in our kitchen, video tape our crafting shenanigans, and then turn in the footage with our project. The teachers would probably be so overwhelmed with sympathy for me that Emry would be awarded an automatic A+ and family crafting projects would be banned from every elementary school in the valley.

First off, these said projects begin well before the time we actually sit down and start creating. Instead, they usually kick off with a drawn out Target run in a frantic attempt to retrieve crafting supplies; supplies we rarely end up using anyway because apparently none of us are creative enough to appropriately incorporate sparkly sequins, popsicle sticks, washi tape, and fuzzy pipe cleaners into our masterpiece designs.

However, the supply run always seems to spark an abnormal amount of excitement for the project, so then from the moment we buy the materials to the minute we have time to sit down and start our project, all I hear is constant questioning, “Mom, when can I make my pumpkin?! Huh, huh, HUHHHHH???!!!”

It’s not like I also had to make cupcakes, cornbread, and soup this weekend for our church’s fall festival, plus take Braelyn to and from dance, and then transform both girls into their characters of choice for this previously mentioned fall festival. Us moms have allllll the time in the world. Bring on the craft!

Yep, this month’s crafting assignment: a mini pumpkin decorating contest. And don’t worry, these teachers are serious about this contest. The flyer came home with an entire set of rules and guidelines, all of which you must follow. Otherwise, your innocent little first grader will be disqualified from judging. Talk about unnecessary anxiety. We didn’t purposely break any of the rules, but with my luck, I’m pretty sure for some reason or another our pumpkin will be on the judging chopping block.

So Emry started off convinced she wanted to make a ghost pumpkin. That is until the white paint that I had purchased didn’t quite match her expectations for the perfect ghostly color. And so then we settled on the idea of a pink cat. The pink painting part was fine. It was the cat part that challenged our patience.

Basically people, we ended up painting a pink pumpkin with about four layers of faces (good thing you can just paint over your mistakes). We then slapped on some pipe cleaners for whiskers, shoved a pair of pink paper ears into slits on top (which now that I think about it, will probably rot…), and glued on a black tail in the back.

If you’re wondering just how cute our pumpkin looks, Emry’s immediate reaction to the completion of our project consisted of cupping her face in her hands, sighing loudly, and forlornly announcing, “Now I’ll never win the contest.”

Thanks kid.

HERE COMES THE RECIPE…

Apparently crafting with pumpkins is not my forte. Baking with pumpkins however…now that’s a different story. I should have just sent Emry with a loaf of this Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread and told her teachers that’s what we turned her mini pumpkin into. But life’s not that easy, I guess.

Let me tell you the joys of this gluten free chocolate chip pumpkin bread. First of all, it’s just crazy delicious. Who cares about any of the other details if it doesn’t taste good, right?! I mean, pumpkin, cinnamon, chocolate…it’s bound to be yummy.

But aside from tasting fantastic, this pumpkin bread is soft, tender, moist, light, fluffy…however you want to describe it. Basically, the texture of this gluten free chocolate chip pumpkin bread is on point. Now you can use a pre-made gluten free flour blend by all means, but to achieve this superior texture, follow my preferred gluten free flour blend. If you’re a serious gluten free baker, I would highly suggest buying separate flours and creating your own blends with lesser amounts of xanthan gum. But if you’re just baking gluten free for a friend or a one time occasion, use a pre-made flour blend for sure.

I also love this gluten free chocolate chip pumpkin bread because it’s not overly sweet. Most pumpkin bread recipes out there call for 1 1/2 to 2 cups of sugar, which let’s be real, makes more of a cake than a quick bread. My recipe calls for only 1 cup of sugar and about a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. It’s just enough sweetness to satisfy a sweet tooth but doesn’t quite fall into the indulgent treat category. That’s why I don’t feel too guilty giving an occasional slice to my kids for breakfast here and there.

So lastly on my list for loving this gluten free chocolate chip pumpkin bread is the convenience. Now I’m not too concerned about convenience when cooking. If something doesn’t taste good, I don’t care how easy it was to make, it was still a waste of my time. I would rather spend more time on something that is going to impress my taste buds. But, this pumpkin bread satisfies both my tight schedule and picky palate! You can whip this bread up in one bowl, and by baking it in mini loaves, it’s done in about 35 minutes. No complaints here!

If you haven’t fully embraced fall yet, let this gluten free chocolate chip pumpkin bread help you welcome the season. It’s a scent you’ll want floating around your house year round. And even just one bite of this pumpkin bread eases life’s stresses, or so it seems. Trust me, I know from experience…dang pink pumpkin cat.