What a lovely start to October it has been. I’ve reacquainted myself with my collection of jeans that seems to have somehow shrunken in the closet ever so slightly. I mean… jeans shrink from neglect right? It’d definitely not that I’ve moved to New Orleans, land of the beignet. I have also rediscovered my awkwardly large collection of scarves. Scarves are blankets we can wear in public… of course I own too many.
With the hint of crisp in the air, I’m also getting into pumpkin. There’s no use fighting it. Since I’m rediscovering old things as new, I thought I would remake my standard pumpkin bread recipe. It offers a familiar comfort that I’m looking for these days. This time I’ve used melted butter instead of vegetable oil and added the slightest dash of black pepper for intrigue.
Leaves are changing. We’re discovering we own too many scarves and too small jeans. We’re making our own Pumpkin Pie Spice. We’re drinking hot lattes. All signs point to Pumpkin Bread. Let’s just be here.
I am very pleased to report that this recipe is both simple and versatile. It also falls under the categories ‘delicious’ and ‘comforting’ so… we’re winning. I used melted butter (because DUH), though you can substitute vegetable / canola / or coconut oil if you have something against butter (it’s cool…). The egg can also be substituted with a flax seed egg. That leaves us at just about vegan, doesn’t it?
This is my favorite part: the coming together.
Egg, melted butter, and pumpkin puree are whisked together while the flour, leavening, and spices are tossed together.
Brown sugar is stirred into the wet ingredients along with orange juice and vanilla extract. The result is a velvety thick pumpkin mixture.
Stirring the wet ingredients into the dry. It’s teamwork between these two.
The batter is thick, sweet, and spiced. I spooned it into a parchment lined baking sheet.
I topped the batter with walnuts before baking though you can use pecans, pumpkin seeds, or sunflower seeds according to what you have in your pantry.
Forty five minutes is just enough time to caffeinate, over caffeinate, and soften a bit of butter to spread on the warm bread.
This bread could easily be our Autumn staple… right up there with our many many scarves.
Print
Pumpkin Bread with Pecans or Walnuts
- Prep Time: 0 hours
- Cook Time: 0 hours
- Total Time: 0 hours
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- big pinch of black pepper
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 cup light packed brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup pecans, very coarsely chopped
Instructions
- Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan and set aside. Alternately, grease a loaf pan, line with parchment paper and grease the parchment paper. The parchment paper will make the bread very easy to remove from the pan.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and pinch of pepper. Set aside.
- In a separate medium bowl, whisk together egg, oil, and pumpkin puree until well combined. Add sugar, cream and vanilla extract and whisk well.
- Pour the wet ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients. Stir until thoroughly combined, and no pockets of flour remain in the batter. Batter will be pretty thick, not pourable.
- Spoon batter into the prepared loaf pan. Top with pecans.
- Bake for 45 to 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the bread comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve warm with extra butter and honey.
Karen Segal
I am baking this at 350 degrees but I couldn’t find the temperature anywhere.
joythebaker
Yep, 350 is correct. It’s in there, but easy to miss.
Emily
Hi Joy, I just made this pumpkin bread with walnuts – so moist & delicious and PERFECT for fall! It was a hit :) I used the puree from a pumpkin I roasted and it turned out great!
Emily
Thanks for the recipe, Joy! I’ve been making your older vegan recipe for years, but thought I’d give this a try this time. It turned out delicious! I like that it’s a little less sweet than the other recipe. Of course that just means I add more honey butter on top. ????
eldavis2013
I made this pumpkin bread yesterday with some of the last of my frozen roasted pumpkin from the fall … the highlight of my Monday morning has been overhearing my co-wokers in the hallway say, ‘.. and someone made a really great spiced bread for coffee hour today!’ .
Thanks for the delicious recipe :)
E-baker
Sad about this bread! Usually, I find that I can’t go wrong with Joy’s recipes but this one missed the mark for me. I found the bread dry and kind of tough- I barely mixed it to fully incorporated, so it wasn’t an over mixing issue. The flavor was good, but I couldn’t get past the texture. I expect pumpkin bread to have that same soft, moist texture of banana bread and this just didn’t work for me.
Oh well, on to the next!
Mary O'Brien
My pumpkin bread top comes out wet, not dry. What happens to make this happen??
Char
Joy – this recipe would totally work using sweet potato puree in place of pumpkin! I have a similar recipe on my blog and its for “chocolate chip sweet potato muffins”. I originally made the recipe as a loaf but the last time I made it, I baked the batter into muffins, sprinkled some streusel topping on and then gave them a sprinkle of cocoa and powdered sugar after they cooled. I’m a sweet potato fanatic – love them. I confess on my blog that I didn’t realize that people didn’t eat sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays until I was in junior high. It’s true! I also make sweet potato butter which is awesome on biscuits! Viva la Sweet Potato!
Debbie F.
If I were to substitute coconut oil for the butter, is it an even swap?
joythebaker
yes, i believe it would be an even swap.
The Queen of Dreaming
is this even real? *-*
https://justsem.wordpress.com/
keelin2124
Where can I find the pumpkin pie spice recipe? The link on the page is not working for me.
joythebaker
Here is the link for the pumpkin pie spice! https://joythebaker.com/2010/11/pumpkin-pie-spice/
Courtney Soifer
Made this pumpkin bread over the weekend (without nuts) and it was awesome – not too sweet, moist and delicious. Sadly, we just found out that my daughter has an egg, wheat and nut allergy so she couldn’t have any but maybe I can figure out a way to tweak this so she can enjoy some awesome Fall goodness as well :)
ajmilad
This just came out of the oven and my house smells amazing! And I browned the butter, because if brown butter is bad, I don’t wanna be good. Can’t wait to dig in.
Aimee Wimbush-Bourque
Autumn staple for sure!!
Kate {Taffeta and Tulips}
Wow. This looks like a winner. I’ve become a little pumpkin obsessed these days but that’s ok, right? Love the idea of infusing some flavor via the orange juice. I’ll have to give that a try!
http://www.taffetaandtulips.com
cheyenne
delicious! i need to get me some pumpkin asap.
xo, cheyenne