Since there are ‘new rules’ for posting … I will follow them. (Recipe hereby included!)
Okay …. Google is seemingly flawless. After being gifted a loaf of delicious pumpkin bread that Penny and Simon mentioned being Monastery or Nun’s Bread (and tastes like gingerbread by the way), my sister googled “monastery bread” … “convent bread” … “nun’s bread”…. to see where we might by more. JACKPOT! The recipe popped up. I tried making it. And it’s exactly the same recipe!!! It had been published by the Los Angeles Times years ago … apparently on a couple of different occasions … and it’s identical to what the monastery in Los Angeles whips up and sells.
The monastery changed their original fruit cake recipe into this phenomenal PUMPKIN Bread (after dried fruit became prohibitively costly, decades back!). The nuns weathered the economic slump by making 40 loaves a day of pumpkin bread … then upped it 80 loaves … and then to upwards of 600 a day during the holiday season … I have no idea what their original fruit cake tasted like. I doubt it would have been up my alley though. This recipe is fabulous though! (I’ve made a variation of it too … changing it to banana bread – which isn’t bad … notes at the bottom of this page).
Even though the L.A. Times says this recipe may not be quite as good as what the monastery bakes … I think it rivals what the Monastery of the Angels in Los Angeles bakes and sells.
PUMPKIN BREAD – MONASTERY OF THE ANGELS (as published in the Los Angeles Times):
3 1/2 cups sifted flour
3 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp. salt
4 eggs beaten
1 cup oil
2/3 cup water
2 cups canned pumpkin
walnut halves
Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg & salt. Combine eggs, oil, water and pumpkin and mix well. Stir in dry ingredients. Turn into 3 greased loan pans & top with a few walnut halves. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool before slicing. Tastes best slightly warm, spread with butter. Makes 3 1 3/4 lb. loaves.
AND… I just tried morphing this from PUMPKIN BREAD to BANANA BREAD . Substitute banana for pumpkin … and just leave out the nutmeg and cinnamon. AMAZING !
I was told NOT to post pictures of foods … without including the recipes ! Buon Appettito … from the Restivo Team @ EWM Realtors … Expanding our real estate blog … to our buyers, sellers … and adding restaurant recommendations … and the occasional recipe … Miami & elsewhere … Vicki & Alexandra restivo.v@ewm.com
