Double Duty Delicacies

When we asked some of our favorite pastry chefs to share their holiday baking secrets, we knew we were in for a lot of deliciousness. But Lauren Kroesser from Eastern Standard did one better and gave us not just a perfect little delicacy for breakfast, tea or dessert, but also a lovely little gift for the sweets-lover in your life.

She says: Here's a recipe for pumpkin bread that I love making around this time of year. It has tons of warm spices that make the whole building (or house if made at home!) smell like the holidays. They’re also super easy to package up for presents.

Who wouldn’t want their house filled with the warm spicy scent of the holidays? Whip up a batch of these when you simply can’t think of what to get your dear old Aunt Sally or Uncle Bob. Or any time really – they are, as Kroesser notes, super easy to make. Want to take the tastiness one step further? Serve your tea time treat with a schmear of Island Creek Oyster Bar’s signature cayenne honey butter – that recipe’s below too!

Mini Pumpkin Bread

• 15 ounces pumpkin puree
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water
• 3 cups sugar
• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

2. Mix pumpkin, eggs, oil, water and sugar together. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt and spices together. Then, mix the wet mixture and the dry mixture together until just combined.

3. Spray 3 ounce mini loaf pans well with nonstick spray. Then, fill each loaf pan 3/4 of the way with the batter.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for 22 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean. Allow loaves to cool completely before serving or packaging.

Cayenne Honey Butter

• 1 pound butter, softened
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 tablespoons honey

1. Mix all the ingredients together.

Hungry for more? Head to the Recipe of the Week section of BostonChefs.com to browse through hundreds of seasonal dishes from Boston's best chefs.