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.
Table of Contents
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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Omgosh!! This is delicious!! Husband loves it! I now make this once a week. Making it as we speak for my parents who are coming over for dinner tonight! Highly recommend! Best pumpkin bread recipe ever!! Love!
It was an amazing recipe, huge hit in my house. I loved the different spices. Something I did was add a vanilla glaze, and it just accentuates the already incredible flavor!
For some reason, my bread turned out to be only 1.5 inches high. I added the leavening agents as instructed, so I can’t figure out what went wrong. I also didn’t get the volume of mixture you see in these pictures. When divided into two pans, the mixture covered the bottom third. The loaves also cooked in 45 minutes.
Hi Leen, These don’t rise very much, but the timing sounds off — did you use 8 x 4-inch loaf pans?
Yes
Hi Lucy, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher for me as this is a pretty predictable recipe. Is there any chance you made a measuring error?
Mine were short too, although tasted very good. I don’t have the smaller pans I only have the 6×9 pans. Can I do it in just one 6×9 pan?
Hi Anne, These don’t rise a ton (they’re more like a cake than a bread), but using the 9 x 6 inch pans would’ve given you an even shorter finished bread. If you want to use those pans, I’d make 1.5 times the recipe. Hope that helps!
Why use unsalted butter? Is regular butter OK?
Thanks, Sue
Hi Susan, The primary reason is that the amount of salt in salted butter varies by brand. This makes it harder to calibrate the rest of your seasoning in the recipe. Most salted butter has approximately 1/4 tsp. salt per stick, so you can use the salted butter if that’s all you have on hand and reduce the salt in the recipe as needed. Hope that helps!
Absolutely delicious and so moist; hard to keep the family from devouring right out of the oven
I’ve been making this for years and have always enjoyed it. Like some of the others I cut the sugar to 1.5 cups and it works great. I’m going to make it again but only have bread flour and cake/pastry flour on hand. Help! Should i do a 50/50 blend of my two flours?
Hi Lisa, I haven’t tried it this way so I can’t say for sure, but I think it should work. Enjoy!
I can always trust your recipes and this was no different – INCREDIBLE! Easy to make and delicious. Thank you.
One tip, as a former professional baker, I was taught to never send a product out without an embellishment. In this case, I adjusted my usual banana bread topping – 1 T sugar 1-1/2 T brown sugar and swapped 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice for my usual cinnamon. Not sure why but this topping is a HUGE hit. I suggest you try it 🙂
Do you add that on at the end of the baking process?
Curious if substituting honey for some of the sugar would work. I do see several people have cut sugar down successfully. Also, would you simply cut the recipe in half if you only want one loaf? I assume so but didn’t know if the cooking time would be adjusted at all.
Hi Ellene, for the best results, I’d stick with the sugar. If you replace any of the sugar with honey, I’d keep it at a minimum. And, yes, if you halve the recipe, you’d simply halve the ingredients. The bake time should be the same. Hope you enjoy!
First time making pumpkin bread and it tastes amazing! Very moist and easy to make. Will definitely keep this recipe and plan to make it again and share a few loaves.
I made this recipe twice, first time I used a little more pumpkin and added a little more of the spices. It was delicious and more like a cake. The next time I followed your recipe with 2 cups of pumpkin (I used E.D Smith pumpkin for both). Equally it turned out great but this was more of a bread. I’ll try and upload a photo.
Followed the recipe but bread came out raw. Even put it in the oven for an extra 30 minutes. Still raw on the inside. Nothing like the pictures.
The bread has a nice texture and was pretty easy to make. I wish I would have used 1/4 the amount of cloves because it really overpowers the pumpkin flavor.