Pumpkin Bread
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Kids love it, grown-ups love it…this pumpkin bread is hard to beat!
My grandmother clipped this pumpkin bread recipe from a magazine over 50 years ago, and it is my most-cherished family recipe. One of my clearest childhood memories is baking the loaves with my mom and carting them off to every neighborhood potluck and holiday party. Now I bake pumpkin bread with my own kids, and it’s just as wonderful today as it was back then. It’s easy to make — just a bit of mixing and stirring, pop it in the oven, and, in about an hour, you’ll have a house smelling of sweet autumn spices and two scrumptious, pumpkiny loaves.
Above, you can see the original recipe from my grandmother’s recipe box—it’s definitely seen its share of spills! After a bit of research, I discovered that the recipe was first published in the McCalls Cook Book (Random House, 1963). It is a typical sweet quick bread, similar to banana bread or cranberry nut bread, leavened with baking powder and/or baking soda instead of yeast. Quick bread batter can often be used to make muffins, and my pumpkin muffins are nearly identical to this bread, but with the addition of a pecan streusel topping.
What You’ll Need To Make Pumpkin Bread
How To Make Pumpkin Bread
Begin by combining the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. I like to add everything in neat little piles in case I lose track of what I’ve added.
Whisk well and set aside.
Combine the butter and sugar in a large bowl or in the bowl of an electric mixer.
Beat until just combined. It will look a little crumbly.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Continue beating for a few minutes until light and fluffy.
Add the pumpkin.
Beat until combined. It will look a little curdled or grainy — that’s okay.
Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture.
And beat on low speed until just combined.
Transfer the batter to loaf pans.
Bake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Let the loaves cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.
That’s all there is to it. Enjoy!
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Video Tutorial
Pumpkin Bread
Kids love it, grown-ups love it…this pumpkin bread is hard to beat!
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1½ sticks (¾ cup) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 (15-oz) can 100% pure pumpkin (I use Libby's)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F and set an oven rack in the middle position. Generously grease two 8 x 4-inch loaf pans with butter and dust with flour (alternatively, use a baking spray with flour in it, such as Pam with Flour or Baker's Joy).
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk until well combined; set aside.
- In a large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until just blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until very light and fluffy, a few minutes. Beat in the pumpkin. The mixture might look grainy and curdled at this point -- that's okay.
- Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until combined.
- Turn the batter into the prepared pans, dividing evenly, and bake for 65 – 75 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the loaves cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
- Fresh out of the oven, the loaves have a deliciously crisp crust. If they last beyond a day, you can toast individual slices to get the same fresh-baked effect.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The bread can be frozen for up to 3 months. After it is completely cooled, wrap it securely in aluminum foil, freezer wrap or place in a freezer bag. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (24 servings)
- Serving size: 1 slice
- Calories: 166
- Fat: 6 g
- Saturated fat: 4 g
- Carbohydrates: 26 g
- Sugar: 17 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Sodium: 117 mg
- Cholesterol: 31 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Love it!
Soooo delicious! We are moving & am trying to use stuff up so I did substitute the white sugar with brown. I also substituted ground ginger for the cloves since I didn’t have any. I will definitely be making this again!
Love this pumpkin bread! I make this bread to give as Christmas presents. It is also part of breakfast or afternoon snack, with sweet butter. The only change I made to the recipe was reduce the amount of cloves to 1/2 teaspoon, which for me made the spice blend more even.
Made many times, everyone loves it. Thanks for sharing the amazing recipe.
I only have one loaf pan but I don’t really want to halve the recipe (since I know it won’t last long in my house). So can this recipe be baked in a bundt pan instead…. If so, how would I adjust the time and temperature?
Hi Kelly, For a Bundt cake, I suggest using this recipe from my cookbook. It’s very similar. Hope you enjoy!
Two questions:
Is it ok to use Truvia, a sugar substitute, in place of the sugar?
Can this bread be frozen?
Hi Steve, I don’t have any experience with sugar substitutes so I’m not sure how Truvia would work here – sorry I can’t be more helpful. But I can say that the bread freezes beautifully!
Can you cook it like a cake in a 13*9 pañ
Hi Brenda, I think you’ll need two 9 x 13 dishes for this. They shouldn’t take as long to bake. I’d start checking for doneness at about 45 minutes. Hope you enjoy!
It’s a great recipe, I really want to try out! Thanks for sharing!
Have any one tried to use Olive oil to substitute butter? If so, how do you control liquid level?
Thanks, Lily
Hi Lily, I’ll let other readers weigh in if any of them have used olive oil here, but I think you’ll get much better results with butter.
it will work, however, olive oil has a distinctive flavour, so it is better to use veg. oil or peanut oil.
Hi To All,
I don’t like to alter a recipe before I even try the original one first, and I have to say, I only cut the sugar by 1 cup and I used my homemade pumpkin puree, which I believe, amounted to more than a 15 oz can. it was more like 750 g. It did not bother me, but if I had used less puree I think it could have turned out even better.
For me, it turned out wonderful. I kept to the directions as in the original
( wet ingredients in one bowl, and dry in another) and really being careful not to over mix the dough, just enough mixing to incorporate all ingredients together. My 5 year old son and my mom both really enjoyed this recipe, so thanks a lot for sharing and it is awesome to have kept your grandmother’s clipping all these years, making it a treasure.
I tried this recipe cause it called for ingredients I already had in my cabinet and I loved it and so did my family. I didn’t have pans so I put them in muffin tins and the recipe made 18. I also replaced butter with apple sauce since I didn’t have any but still an excellent recipe. I also sprinkled sugar on top before baking.
This is the best pumpkin loaf ever! I make this almost every week for my kids for school snack. I cut down the sugar to 1 cup and it is still amazing. Love it! Thank u for sharing.