Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

I had a friend over this morning to talk about photography - swapping stories and tips. Before she came over, I scoured my pantry for something to make since I knew that we would be hungry. I was in a Fall mood, so something with pumpkin sounded especially pleasing.

I found several recipes that required a yellow cake box mix which I didn't have (although, one of the many lessons I learned this morning is that I should always have several boxes of that cake mix! It was in 9/10 of the recipes I looked up!), but I finally found this recipe. A pumpkin cream cheese breakfast bread. Oh wow. If the picture itself didn't sell it, the scrumptious aroma coming from my oven sure did... but that's jumping ahead.

I had all the ingredients and so I set about making this only an hour before my friend was to arrive. If you read my post about the Andes Mint Chocolate Cake, you will begin to notice a trend. My spontaneous nature can bring a lot of unexpected joy to my life, to be sure. But on the other hand, my lack of planning almost always comes back to teach me a lesson. One that I fail to remember time and again, at least, where baking applies. :)

I followed this recipe step by step, but I was rushing. So when the recipe asked me to split to ingredients in half for two different bread pans (can I just note that this whole fiasco could have maybe been avoided if I had had two bread pans), I didn't stop to take the time to actually measure out half. Perhaps, if I had had two bread pans, I would have been able to see right away that I was putting way too much of the mixture into the pan. So then it was time to add the cream cheese part. Once I did, it was glaringly obvious that I had put too much in -- and I still had to layer it once more with more of the mixture, covering the cream cheese with more pumpkin bread. I knew just from looking at it that it was going to be bad once it hit the oven. But I didn't have time to fix it, and plus, the layers were already set. So I just forged ahead and hoped for the best.

Ten minutes in, it was already overflowing off the top and falling into a heap on my oven floor.

Of course, if you know me well, you would probably expect to see that picture. It would be more shocking if my experiment turned out exactly as it should. Needless to say, my kitchen is a mess and I should probably stop writing and go clean it up. But, as I am, I fully intend to enjoy a huge slice of this pumpkin bread. Because even if it looks atrocious, it tastes divinnnne.