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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Being from Britain we don’t do a lot with pumpkin apart from carve them for Halloween and throw the insides out! We don’t have canned pumpkin over here so for this recipe I have roasted and pureed fresh pumpkin. I’m a big lover of squash but only make savoury dishes with it so this year I thought I’d try something more sweet like cake rather than just soup so Google found your recipe and I’m so glad it did! This recipe is amazing! My two boys love it, my nan loves it and she’s a fussy Scot whos not a fan of the pumpkin carving tradition we have adopted from yourselves because comes from the time when Halloween was about carving turnips! As I make it for my small children to enjoy as an after school snack and in their lunch boxes I’ve adjusted the recipe a little to make it a bit more healthier. I use half wholemeal flour and have reduced the sugar by half and it still tastes incredible! Also I found baking it in my oven over here it only takes 45 minutes to bake two loaves. I want to be able to bake this cake all year round so my Halloween weekend is going to consist of roasting and pureeing pumpkin to freeze so I can continue to bake it all year round! Many thanks for the recipe!
Lauren, we DO have tinned pumpkin over here in Blighty, readily available in loads of supermarkets. I am about to open a can/tin of Libby’s to make the bread. No scooping out/roasting going on here! I’m a Scot, like your gran, and totally familiar with turnip howking – hard labour indeed!
Think I could add some frozen cranberries (thawed and chopped) to the loaves?
I think that would work, but be aware that as the cranberries defrost they may add a little bit of a red color to the batter. Enjoy!
Ok…I made this bread last night. I made 3 small loves. They are incredible. The taste is beyond belief. This is definitely a keep.
Now…to address those of you who have said the bread wasn’t done in the 60 minutes, even though the toothpick test said it was. The problem isn’t the recipe. It’s with all of us. And I can explain. Last night, I took the bread out of the oven, right at 60 minutes. The toothpick test was clean, indicating the bread was done. Well, I took one loaf, flipped it out of the pan, and immediately I noticed, that it was very soft and falling apart. It seemed done, but yet not done. I tasted it and it tasted incredible. But, because it seemed like it might not be done, I put the other 2 loaves back into the oven for another 30 minutes. That was a mistake. Though I didn’t realizes it until this morning. Let me explain. The 2 loaves that I put back into the oven, seemed a bit dry, not too horribly, but just a tad, on top of that, they seemed to lose some of their flavor. The loaf I had already cut and left on the cutting board, I decided to cut a slice of that and have a piece of it this morning. And that’s when I figured out where we ALL went wrong. Do NOT remove the bread from their pans, do NOT cut the bread, DON’T do anything to it. Just take the bread out of the oven at the end of the 60 minutes, put it on the counter or stove top, and walk away. Leave it alone. Don’t touch it until the next morning. If you do that, you’ll have the bread you expected in the first place. And now that I have figured this out, I now know to bake the bread a day before I need it or want it. This recipe is super incredible and awesome tasting. It’s worth keeping and making. Over and over and over and over…. Happy Baking Everyone.
I made this bread last night, tastes wonderful, but it didn’t rise. My baking powder is fresh. My unsalted butter was room temp.
Hi Kathleen, This is more cake-like than bread-like, so it won’t rise much. If you want to get a bit more rise out of it, add 1/2 cup more flour.
i used 3t of pumpkin pie spice in lieu of the spices and added 1t of vanilla and it was divine! for my oven i baked at 350 for a little over an hour. an outstanding recipe! thank u!
Well you already have 523 reviews so this isn’t needed but I had to tell you how much I love this recipe and your website. My 22 year old son requested this for the second time because everyone at his job loves it. Makes this mom happy to make it for her son! ?
My autistic 17 year old son made this using his pumpkin he got from a school field trip. The recipe was easy to follow and turned out moist and delicious. Only thing he did different was added chopped walnuts. Will use this recipe again!
So glad you (and he) enjoyed it!
This recipe is one of the best punkin breads I’ve made. Delicious! Thank you for sharing!
What would be the baking time if I make muffins instead of loaves?
Hi Kate, I’d start checking the muffins at about 25 minutes. Hope you enjoy!
Hi Jenn, your pumpkin bread looks
amazing, however, in your recipe it calls
for 2 cups of sugar……that seems like
a lot of sugar. Can I cut back on the sugar to 1 cup?
Gail
Hi Gail, I haven’t tried the recipe with only 1 cup of sugar, so I can’t say for sure, but some other readers have commented that they have cut the sugar back a bit and have been happy with the results.