Pumpkin Extravaganza Continues... Pumpkin Bread!

So I recently did a pumpkin loaf bake-off (competing against myself of course!) to see which of two pumpkin loaf recipes came out on top: the Epicurious recipe for Pumpkin-Walnut Bread versus the food.com recipe for Pumpkin Bread. Now it may well be due to under-baking the Epicurious recipe that it was not my favorite of the two, but I wasn't all that happy with the flavor either. I liked the less cloyingly sweet flavor of the second recipe. When I baked the food.com recipe the first time, I did not have any applesauce on hand so I used 1/2 c. oil in total, and instead of water, I used the whey from kefir cheese! It does produce a smaller loaf (8x4" as opposed to a 9x5"). 

I recently baked this loaf again with a few more variations. I used 1/4 c. homemade applesauce (which had no added sugar), and reduced the sugar in the recipe to 1/2 c. + 2Tbs. I was also a bit lazy and tried substituting 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spices for the spices listed in the recipe below, but I think it is indeed better with the spice amounts shown below. This produces a moist loaf - not sweet at all. If you want a sweet loaf, use 3/4 c. sugar with the applesauce. If you use apple juice instead of water, and decide to add raisins, the bread will be even sweeter still.

Pumpkin Bread
3/4 c. sugar (or reduce to 1/2 c. + 2 Tbs)
1/4 c. oil
1/4 c. applesauce
2 eggs
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp all spice
1/2-1 tsp vanilla
1 c. pure pumpkin
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. + 3 Tbs flour
1/3 c. water, kefir whey, or apple juice
3/4 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
3/4 c. raisins (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8 x 4 loaf pan.
2. Whisk sugar, oil and applesauce together. Beat in eggs. Whisk pumpkin, spices, vanilla and water (or juice) in.
3. Sift flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl.
4.  Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until all the dough is moistened. Fold in nuts and raisins.
5. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 70-80 minutes until done.
6. Cool on a rack.