My husband Ben and I love pumpkin bread. To be specific, I love pumpkin bread and Ben loves chocolate-chip pumpkin bread, so we always make two separate loaves. It works out well because then I don’t have to worry about Ben eating up my share! Little does he know that I occasionally steal bits of his chocolate one. In any case this is our go-to recipe when we have guests or cravings for something a little sweet. Unlike some other sweetbreads such as banana bread, you’re not dependent on having perfectly ripe fruits or vegetables at hand, unless you are puréeing the pumpkin from scratch. I always have a can or two or dozen of pumpkin purée in the pantry because they keep well, and I love any food that contains pumpkin.
Pumpkin Bread
Servings 2 9×5 loaf pans
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter for greasing pans
- 15 ounces pumpkin purée
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 2/3 cups water
- 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 10 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (60% cacao) optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Lightly grease two 9×5 loaf pans with soft butter.
- In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to mix together the pumpkin purée, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.
- Pour the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture and use a hand mixer to mix until just blended.
- Stir in the chocolate chips if making two chocolate chip pumpkin breads. Otherwise pour half of the batter into one of the prepared loaf pans. You can stir in chocolate chips to the remaining batter, or leave the batter as is and pour into the second prepared pan.
- Bake for 60 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when a long toothpick inserted in the center of the loaves come out clean. For the chocolate chip pumpkin loaves you may see melted chocolate on the toothpick which is fine, but you should not see pumpkin batter.
- Cool for 10 mins, then take the loaves out of the pan.