Baking: butternut squash poppy lemon cranberry loaf

Show me a cake recipe that uses grated/pureed veg or fruit and I'm sold. I'm not deluded enough to convince myself that a slice of banana bread, carrot cake or zucchini bread would count as 1 portion of my 5 a day (how awesome would that be!) but I can't help loving any cake that keeps fresh for a few days without drying out. When I came across a Fresh from the Oven challenge I knew I had to take part. This month's challenge calls for a fruit breakfast bread and is hosted by La Cuisine de Sarah. While perusing various recipes I came across this pumpkin loaf and I knew the search was over. First of all, it uses butternut squash and we know how I feel about this beautiful vegetable. Secondly - poppy seeds and lemon! Exciting. And finally - it's easy to make and modify. After deciding that adding a few handfuls of dried cranberries and orange fruit flakes (hey, who said they only belong in kid's lunchboxes?) can only add to the flavour and make the bread more moreish I rolled up my sleeves and started baking.

To make this delicious bread you'll need:

225 g pumpkin or butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cubed

3 tbsps full fat milk

175 g self raising flour

1 large egg

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

120 g caster sugar (the original recipe calls for 150 g but I decided to reduce it slightly as the cranberries are quite sweet)

1 1/2 tsp mixed spice

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

50 g unsalted butter, cubed

2 tbsps poppy seeds

zest of 1 lemon

2 handfuls of dried cranberries

1 small packet of orange fruit flakes (I used these)

Please ignore the fact that the egg is missing from the line up of ingredients pictured above. I have no excuses. I forgot (but I added it to the cake mix!)

Start by preheating the oven to 180 C/160 C fan. Grease a loaf tin and line with a strip of baking parchment.

Boil cubed butternut squash/pumpkin until soft (this will take about 10-15 minutes), then drain and leave to cool.

When it's cooled down puree it in a food processor or use a hand blender. Transfer the pulp into a mixing bowl, add the egg and milk and mix.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and spices into a food processor, add cubed butter and blitz until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add it to the puree and gently stir with a spatula. Add poppy seeds, lemon zest, fruit flakes and cranberries and fold them in.


Spoon the batter into the tin and bake for 45 minutes until golden and risen. Cool on a wire rack and eat!

As I expected, the loaf is really moist, with hints of tartness from cranberries and lemon zest; poppy seeds are a nice touch and add a bit of texture. I imagine this bread will stay fresh for a few days (I say 'imagine' because mine barely lasted a day - me and my husband destroyed most of it as soon as it was cool enough to eat and I ended up baking another one as I promised to bring it to the office for my workmates to taste! It's delicious and easy to make - I'm already thinking of using the same mix to make muffins :)