I’ll admit it. My toxic trait is making pumpkin bread late at night. Then, because I can whip the ingredients together in only a few minutes, I somehow forget it takes an hour to bake. I end up staying up just to take it out of the oven. My favorite recipe makes two loaves and for a while I only had one pan. It would take me two hours to make both loaves or I’d end up with extra batter. Fear not, I've since splurged on a second loaf pan. And let me tell you, if you’re buying your Pyrex new and not thrifting it, you’re missing out on that $2 glass loaf pan- but that’s a topic for another day.
I’m trying my best to manifest fall and to do so I’ve already kicked off my pumpkin bread baking. I have a favorite recipe for pumpkin bread. When I originally came across this recipe and saw it was from the Food Network, I knew it had to be good. It makes a super fluffy, almost cake-like style pumpkin loaf with just the right amount of sweetness-to-moistness-to-texture ratio. Key factors.
But I decided to branch out and try a Skinnytaste recipe for my first pumpkin bread of the season. Let me preface this with the fact that I have been religiously making Skinnytaste recipes for the whole month of August. I’m a BIG fan. This recipe, however, did not stand up to my go-to. Likely because this is a lighter take on pumpkin bread and I think I prefer the sweeter, bolder flavor of the other recipe, even if that means extra calories. The texture wasn’t there for me as well. Too spongy. If you are not a sweets person and are looking for a more bread-like consistency, rather than cake-like, this could be the recipe for you. I also haven’t ruled out that maybe since this was my first time making this recipe, I may not have made it exactly right. Also, I have found it’s important to use fresh baking soda and I don’t think mine was fresh enough. Either way I'm sticking to my go-to recipe.
If you’re up for kicking off the pumpkin festivities now, below I’ve shared my absolute favorite pumpkin bread recipe! If you try it, I'd love to know your thoughts. I’ve also included the Skinnytaste recipe in case you want to give it a go. Also, If you have a favorite pumpkin recipe please share it with me! I’d love to try it. My favorite pumpkin bread has to be the Pumpkin Muffie from Panera and I am currently on the hunt for a copycat recipe. I think it's the crumble brown sugar topping that does it for me. More to come on that!
“The Best Pumpkin Bread”
Recipe courtesy of Food Network Kitchen can be found HERE
Ingredients:
- Unsalted butter, for the pans
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan (see Cook's Note)
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
- One 15-ounce can pure pumpkin puree
- 2 teaspoons fine salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2/3 cup water
My favorite baking essentials for this recipe and other changes I made:
- The pumpkin pie spice from Trader Joe’s has to be my favorite. Oftentimes, I use just the pumpkin pie spice and some cinnamon in place of the spices in these pumpkin bread recipes and it turns out perfect!
- I prefer to line my baking dishes with butter
- For the Skinnytase recipe I didn’t use the pepitas. I am sure they would have been a nice touch but I didn’t have them on hand.
- I love my glass Pyrex loaf pan. It allows the bread to rise nicely and it’s easy to get the bread out of. I find glass Pyrex all the time at thrift stores. I highly recommend growing your collection this way.
- I also love my Le Creuset loaf pan (newer version than the one I currently use). I find it’s best not to overfill the pan as to allow the bread to properly rise and cook evenly.
- A KitchenAid Mixer. I cannot recommend them more. It will change your life. Especially when making cookies. No more sore arms from laboring over thick dough with a hand-mixer. I love that you can just toss in the ingredients and the mixer does the rest.
- I’m a sucker for a good cake stand to display baked goods. But I also know that if I bring in one more piece of non-essential glassware into my apartment, I may have to kick my boyfriend out just to make more room. So instead, I have opted for this multi-functional cake stand. It’s super cool. You can turn it into a chips and dip holder or even a salad dish.
“Low Fat Pumpkin Bread”
Recipe courtesy of Skinnytaste can be found HERE
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
- 1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 large egg whites
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- baking spray
- 2 tbsp pepitas