Pumpkin Bread Recipe

I have been working on this pumpkin bread recipe all day and I am so excited to share it with you. It is soft, moist, and absolutely delicious.

This is the first time that I actually completely reworked, mixed, matched, and created my own baking recipe – I feel a little bit like a chemist.

You see, I had a pumpkin bread recipe that I made for years, but I didn’t love it. I just couldn’t find a better alternative. Most of the recipes I came across had too much sugar or too much fat.

So, my ambition finally kicked in and I decided to piece together a recipe that met my criteria.

My first try flopped. (you can see the sad results on my Tumblr here)

But my second try came out great – and this is the pumpkin bread recipe that I am sharing with you here.

You may also like: Favorite Banana Bread Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup canola (or vegetable) oil
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 egg
• 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger powder
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin (this is half of a 15 oz can)

How It’s Done

Combine the sugar with oil and sour cream (my secret ingredient) in a mixer bowl and beat on low until combined. I use my ancient, yet very reliable, KitchenAid stand mixer for this on the Stir setting

Add one egg and continue to beat on low until combined.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices until combined.

Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture on low speed until combined.

Beat in the pumpkin.

Time to Bake

Pour the batter into a greased, nonstick, 9 inch bread pan and bake at 350 degrees F for about 50 minutes.

Cool in the pan for a minute or two and then remove from pan onto a cooling rack.

Slice and eat!

Wrap the part you don’t eat tightly in aluminum foil and store in refrigerator.

One Caveat

Make sure to grease the pan well. My pumpkin bread recipe stuck a little bit to the bottom of the pan – so I must not have done a very good job of it.

Baking Powder vs Baking Soda

If you have ever wondered about how baking powder works vs baking soda – I found a great explanation here at Sally’s Baking Addiction.

This article actually helped me a lot when formulating my pumpkin bread recipe.

Baking soda needs an acidic element in the recipe to work properly whereas baking powder already has some acidity in the product.

What I realized is that my old recipe (the one that didn’t come out very good) had lots of baking soda in it – but no acidic element.

So, I added acidity via the sour cream, slightly reduced the baking soda, and added in a little baking powder.

Just in case you were interested ….

Print This Recipe

Your Pumpkin Bread Recipe

Do you have a great pumpkin bread recipe? What ingredients do you add that makes it a favorite?