Tea Time Tuesday: Pumpkin Loaf

Welcome to Tea Time Tuesday!

     This week we will enjoy the famous taste for fall, pumpkin spice!  Lilian and I agreed on trying a pumpkin bread that closely mimics Starbucks Pumpkin Loaf with our choice of tea.  We each had the same recipe to work with, but tea choice falls to whatever we want or have on hand individually.  So grab your cup of tea and enjoy reading about our newest T^3 adventure!  Cheers!

Getting everything ready for the baking adventure!	Pumpkin bread is mixed and ready for the oven!

The Recipe Unfolds

The Copycat Starbucks Pumpkin bread was a very nice treat enjoyed by many (as I sure didn't want to eat it all myself!).  I was glad Mike let me share it with his co-workers; one of which is a good friend of ours, and she LOVES pumpkin bread.  I even shared a photo or two of it on Snapchat (I'll add my SnapCode So, feel free to follow if you want and have an account!) during the entire adventure.  There were only two things I did differently from the recipe mostly out of what I had available to me.  Firstly, I didn't have enough AP flour so I used a bread flour by King Arthur brand (Not a plug/ad/sponsor, I just got it on sale at my grocery store and it's a great quality!).  Secondly, I couldn't find an inexpensive option for one of the spices it called for, and took the McCormick Pumpkin Pie Spice route instead.

It gave me much more than eight servings on that pumpkin loaf, so I must have cut it in much thinner slices.  They were still plenty big enough for me, and I had eight total for my half of the loaf, before sending the rest with Mike.  The texture was great with this bread despite using a different flour (I was worried it would be too dense, like a pound cake instead of a breakfast bread), but it was moist and still had an airy fluffiness.  Then there was the taste.  Such a Devine flavor, fast-forwarding me all the way to Thanksgiving!  I enjoyed the spiciness of the pumpkin flavors and loved that it was without crust, unlike our Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie.

Time for the Tea!

Now, to finally get onto teas I paired with this bread on different days.  There were three teas in total, a Spice Tea, a Chai Tea, and a Peach Tea  

First Tea Pairing

This wasn't your typical leaf or bag tea, but an instant mix from a once awesome teahouse in Portland, TX.  Lilian took me to this tea house when we were in school, where we enjoyed food and spiced tea.  It is sadly closed now, but once stood a great restaurant and tea house that went by the name of Blue Willow Tea Room.  I cherished my last remaining jar of their spiced tea mix! (That's the jar in the photo above)  The tea has a nice warm spices with amazing citrus orange notes, really making me feel like I'm enjoying some wassail. 

Second Tea Pairing

This one was a Twining's of London Spiced Chai Tea, and oh was that a nice drink!  However, I don't feel it was the best choice since it had all the same spices that were in the bread so-to-speak.  The additional depth of the cloves in the Chai tea were a nice compliment though, as I went with the pumpkin pie spice and it didn't have as much clove spice.  The photos below are of my pumpkin loaf with the Chai in my "Press Heart to Give" mug by Dodger Leigh aka DexterityBonus.  Mike gave that one as well as her "COFFEH" logo mug for Christmas years ago, and I still love them both!  I'm actually sad to use this one as it's starting to fade a little. :-(

Third Tea Paring

Also, my final drink with this bread, was called Peach Tranquility from Teavana.  A good friend (well practically family!) of mine who also enjoys loose-leaf tea brought me a sample of her fruity tea stash.  It's not something that immediately jumped out at me for this bread.  I enjoyed the tea warm, as well as cold (I tend to forget my mug somewhere and come back to it later).  It wasn't my favorite tea to pair with the pumpkin bread, but it wasn't displeasing either.

On a side note:

I did find the shelled, salted & roasted pumpkin seeds asked for in the recipe and put them on the bread per instructions. However, no-one cared for them (including me).  So, when I bake this again (and I most certainly will) I'm just nixing the seeds.

What are Your Thoughts?

Do you have any favorite treats or savories you enjoy with tea?  Are there any teas or recipes you think we should try?  Let me know in the comments right below this post!

Experience the other half of T^3!

+Lilian Brennan over on Petticoat Pedaler also baked this same recipe. Take a look at how things went for them and what type of tea they tried it with.

Until We Meet Again,

Plum Petite