My 109th experiment: Calabasa chocolate chip bread

I bought a squash that I thought to be pumpkin. But it looked so different from those orange-colored pumpkins that hubby thought it's a spoilt specimen. I asked my agricultural friend about it. She told me that this is a cooking pumpkin. Because it is for cooking and not decoration, farmers do not bother to make it look great. But it has much better flavor than those orange-colored specimens. I went to the web and found out that this particular specimen is called calabasa. It has a naturally dull and unattractive skin; but its flavor is great. So I use it for a recipe adapted from the KAF cookbook.

Recipe: Calabasa squash chocolate chip sweet bread (1 loaf)

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 to 1.5 cup cooked calabasa squash
- 1+1/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour
- 1/4 tp baking powder
- 1 tp baking soda
- 3/4 tp salt
- 1 tp ground nutmeg
- 1 tp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 3/4 cups chocolate chips (use a high quality brand)

Procedure:
1. In a metal bowl, beat oil, sugar, eggs. Add cooked squash and vanilla extract. Beat on low setting of electric mixer.
2. Sieve together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg.
3. Add the dry ingredients into the wet one. Use spoon or fork to mix.
4. Grease a 5x9 loaf pan. Pour batter into pan. Bake at 350F for about 1 hour.
5. When a toothpick stuck into the loaf comes out clean, it's done. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes. Then turn out and let cool on rack.

Results:
12:41pm, calabasa whole, washed:

12:44pm, calabasa opened:

4:13pm, steamed calabasa:

5:17pm, almost all ingredients, except salt:

5:35pm, wet ingredients and dry ingredients prepared separately:

5:39pm, beating squash with electric mixer:

5:51pm, final batter:

5:53pm, chocolate chips and walnuts mixed into batter:

5:55pm, batter in pan:

5:55pm, batter height in pan:

5:55pm, baking started at 350F:

6:19pm, baked 25 minutes:

6:47pm, baked 53 minutes:

6:47pm, toothpick test passed:

7:07pm, loaf's top when cooling:

7:07pm, loaf's height when cooling:

7:07pm, loaf's bottom:

7:07pm, pan's bottom:

7:08pm, loaf's corner:

7:45pm, cooled 30 minutes, slicing when still slightly warm:

7:47pm, knife with melted chocolate:

7:45pm, 3 slices:

7:46pm, interior of loaf:

Observations:
1. About 30 minutes into baking, a sweet aroma of baking suddenly diffuses out of the oven, announcing to the whole household that something great is going on in the kitchen. When our guests arrive, they immediately ask what we are cooking.
2. This bread is just incredibly yummy! Our guests really like it.
3. This bread comes out of the pan easily enough. I wonder if it's just because I've greased the pan with crisco shortening, or because of the texture of the bread itself. It holds together very well, but it is not hard or dry.