Adventures in Baking Parts I & II

Part I- Ginger Pumpkin Bread

I took a break from crafting to do some baking. I come from a long line of bakers and I think it's just in my blood. Plus I've watched thousands of hours of the Food Network so that automatically makes me a chef, right?
I don't normally bake bread. I usually bake cookies, but this crisp cold fall weather has inspired me to try pumpkin bread. I found this Ginger Pumpkin Bread recipe from www.marthastewart.com. Although the texture and sweetness was excellent, I wasn't crazy about the ginger. I prefer ginger flavor in savory foods like teriyaki chicken and kalbi (korean style ribs,) not so much in sweets. Unless we're talking gingerbread cookies with vanilla frosting. But that's a whole different category. "I never met a cookie I didn't like," is my motto. So pretty much any flavor cookie is good, even the ginger variety.
I tried it out at work and had mixed reviews from "love it" to "so-so." I guess it all depends on your likeness to ginger. My husband liked it, which says alot because he hates anything pumpkin flavored. He doesn't even like pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving!
Unsatisfied with this bread (sorry, Martha) I found another recipe and we move on to Part II:

Part II- Spiced Pumpkin Nut Bread

Do these loaves look unusually mountainous? The recipe called for two 9x5 loaf pans, but I didn't realize that detail until after I threw them in the oven in two 8.5x4.5 loaf pans. I guess it's that whole reading-the-directions-thouroughly thing again that I failed to do.

{Why make large loaf pans only 0.5" larger than the medium loaf pan. I totally get the mini loaf pans. They're miniature sized. They're cute. The large loaf pan just messes up the medium loaf pan recipe and I doubt I will go out and buy large pans. Why not just make one standard size loaf. So irritating. lol.}

This bread was delicious regardless of the overfilling faux pas. It didn't overflow while it baked and it still baked all the way through in the same amount of time as the recipe called for, so I guess it's all good. They'll just be larger toward the middle. The Ginger Pumpkin Bread texture was way more moist and cake-like, which I really liked about Part I, but I much prefer the pumpkin pie spice added to this bread. Maybe I'll try Part I again and sub pumpkin pie spice for the ground ginger. Part III is coming soon. I was going to bake mini loaf Banana Chocolate Chip Bread (recipe from the same source) but I ran out of flour and sugar ingredients. It'll have to wait until my next grocery shopping trip.
Find this Spiced Pumpkin Nut Bread recipe at www.verybestbaking.com/recipes.
Thanks for visiting and Happy Autumn everyone!