Chocolate Pumpkin-Apple Protein Bread

Hey Friends!

Wow what a mouthful that title is but it just has so many good things in it that MUST make the recipe name…or I’m just not creative enough to come up with a cooler name for the delicious bread….I digress. Anyways, I have been really wanting to like pumpkin lately as I see it EVERYWHERE on instagram and everyone says how good it is…

How much they love pumpkin.

Bring on the pumpkin…

MORE pumpkin…

Pumpkin everything…

Pumpkin so hard…

You get my point.

It’s kind of weird how someone such as myself who didn’t think they really liked pumpkin flavoured things gets intrigued by all the various pumpkin goodies that are posted up. Perhaps it’s because I do love fall flavours and so I believe that I really should like pumpkin OR maybe I’m just always looking for a new challenge to dive into in the kitchen. Either way, I tried a lil experiment of my very own…

So much potential these lil guys had. I thought it would be a solid recipe but they turned out lacking that depth of flavour that fall themed goodies really should have. To be honest, what really saved them was the cinnamon roll questbar chunks. Spoken like a true addict…

So with that slight fail, I was determined to make something decent with pumpkin to test out whether or not I truly didn’t like pumpkin flavoured baked goods (I like pumpkin in it’s savory form!). I searched Pinterest and instagram for some healthy muffins or quick breads that I could test out and came across this lovely sight:

Created by the amazing Ellen over at Best Fit Body, this bread was just the thing that I was looking for to test out pumpkin. I mean look at it. LOOK AT IT! So good right? Yeah, so I proceeded to then tweak it all out so that it would fit the macros that I was lookin for. Unfortunately no chocolate chippies made the cut for my version BUT I did add some more fall staples into the recipe that made it delicious nonetheless. If you want to try out Ellen’s recipe, which I would totally recommend you do, you can check it out here. Oh also, parooze around her site as she posts the most amazing recipes EVER. Ooey-gooey banana brownies? Snickerdoodle Blondies that are clean? Yeah, those are hers too. Check her out!

So, how did I go about ‘tweeking’ an already beautifully constructed bread you ask? Well, I fiddled around with my My Fitness Pal account and came up with something that both myself and my boyfriend really enjoyed and here it is.

She’s a masterpiece and I enjoyed my own piece of…yes, pumpkiny goodness last night with my puddin…

Just check out those apple chunks!

Mmmm I lerve baked apples. The spices in this bread really stood out. From it baking in the oven to slicing it open to taking my first bite, the smell of the pumpkin pie spice components and the loads of cinnamon rocked! I’m starting to think that Miss Spice Queen herself just failed to add a large enough quantity of these marvelous spices in my previous muffin attempt. GASP!

Anywho, here comes the recipe 😀

Adapted from Ellen, serves 8

Wet Ingredients:

1 whole egg (large)

3/4 cup liquid egg whites

1/2 cup pure pumpkin puree

1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce

1 tbsp sugar free (or pure) maple syrup

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tbsp coconut oil

2 tbsp milk of choice (I used Dream Blends unsweetened almond-coconut blend)

Dry Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup oats

1 scoop (~30g) chocolate whey protein

2 packets (or more) of organic stevia + some for sprinkling on top

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

Add-In’s:

diced apple (use however much you want, I used 80 grams with the skin on…nutrients!)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Whisk your egg in a bowl then combine with all of the rest of the wet (with the exception of the oil and milk) ingredients. Set aside
3. Pulse 1/4 cup of your oats into a flour and place in a large bowl. Add all of the rest of the dry ingredients and mix to get any clumps out
4. Fold your wet into your dry
5. Add the oil and the milk to the mixture and gently mix
6. Dice your apple and fold in (and any additional add-ins you wish)
7. Pour your batter into a sprayed bread mold and smooth out ensuring that the top is level. Sprinkle the top with some granulated stevia if you would like.
8. Bake until the top is brown and a toothpick comes out mostly clean when inserted into the centre. Mine took about 35 minutes
9. Remove from the oven and let it sit in the mold for at least an hour before slicing into it to allow for it to fully set.
10. Enjoy!

Things to note

• Feel free to add any additional add in’s that you would like. I chose apples because 1. I wanted to incorporate them and 2. because they fit the macros I was looking for. Cacao nibs or nuts like walnuts would have been a great addition to this bread. Dried fruit would also pair nicely and of course, like Ellen’s version, chocolate (or dairy free carob) chips
• If you don’t have (or want to use) chocolate whey, you could follow Ellen’s recipe and use 1/2 coconut flour OR perhaps experiment with a few tablespoons each of coconut flour and pure unsweetened cacao or cocoa powder. If you do that later, more sweetener may be required.

Like I mentioned, my boyfriend and I really enjoyed this bread! It was really moist, flavourful and the aroma of the spices really made it special. I liked it so much that it also made it’s debut in my proats this morning as seen on my instagram account

Here it looked before I mixed it all in…

….and after with my peanut butta loud and proud in the centre of the mountain. 😀

Super good and very festive!

All I did was combine my 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp oats, 1/3 cup almond milk, 1/3 cup water, shake of cinnamon, 1 tsp of chia seeds and 1/3 scoop of Cellucor Cinnamon Swirl Whey in my bowl the night before and refrigerated over night. In the morning, I added a touch of water to get it movin and nuked it for 3 minutes. I then took it out and added just under 1/3 of a cup of liquid egg whites. STIR STIR STIR and nuked again for an additional 2 minutes and proceed to watch it overflow. Watch it or your microwave will try to explode it. After that, I broke up my piece of my lovely pumpkin bread on top of the proats in addition to some diced up (nuked) cinnamon McIntosh apple pieces and threw in it back in the microwave for a final minute (yeah I like my oats pippin hot!). FINALLY, I took it out, added 1/2 tsp lucuma powder (optional superfood), stirred it all up and topped it with 2 tsp of my homemade crunchy peanut butter. Dive in!

If you make this bread let me know how you like it. We thought it was mighty tasty 😀

Do you like pumpkin baked goods?

Favourite fall goodies? The smell of fresh baked apple pie gets me every time!

Thanks again to Ellen for this wonderful recipe! Much blogger love 🙂

-Chelsea