Skip the mass-produced pumpkin muffins and donuts that are ubiquitous at donut shops and bakeries this time of year, and bake pumpkin bread instead. Homemade pumpkin bread is so easy to make and so far superior to the commercial stuff: dark and moist, deeply spicy, studded with walnuts and topped with a crunchy cap of cinnamon sugar. As a bonus, it will make your house smell amazing as it bakes.
It’s the spices that give this loaf its deep brown color - a hefty amount of cinnamon, plus nutmeg, allspice, and that darkest and spiciest of them all, clove.
My favorite part is the cinnamon-sugar crust, the way its crunchy, sandy texture contrasts with the soft, almost creamy crumb of the bread. The walnuts add another layer of texture, but if you can’t eat nuts just leave them out.
I bake this pumpkin bread in a larger-than-normal-size bread pan. My pan measures 10 x 5 inches at the top edge; a standard loaf pan measures 8½ x 4½. It’s inconvenient that one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree makes too much batter to fit in a standard pan, but that’s the way it is. You either have to make less batter, and figure out what to do with an odd, small amount of leftover pumpkin, or go all in and make a big loaf. It’s a no-brainer really - more pumpkin bread is never a bad thing. Whatever you do, don’t try to convince yourself that the batter will fit in the smaller pan, or you’ll end up with something like this disaster shown below. Yes, I had to test it so I could prove it to you, and I even baked it on a sheet pan because I knew it was going to overflow.
If you don’t have the right size pan, you can bake some of the batter separately. See the note in the recipe for specifics.
Making this ahead:
- Ideally, try to make this bread far enough ahead to give it time to cool completely before slicing - a couple of hours. I know it’s great warm - that’s what the microwave is for. But if you slice it when it’s warm it will crumble.
- Pumpkin bread may taste even better the day after it’s baked. Keep it well wrapped at room temperature. It will keep for about 3 days.
Pumpkin Bread
Use a 10 x 5-inch bread pan for this Pumpkin Bread. If you don't have a pan that large, use a standard sized pan (8½ x 4½) and bake some of the batter separately in a ramekin, custard cup, or a couple of cups of a muffin tin. A smaller loaf will cook in less time (about 60 minutes) and muffins for 20 to 25.
Ingredients
- Soft butter for the pan, or cooking spray
- 2¼ cups (9½ ounces or 270 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground clove
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (or ¼ teaspoon of Morton’s)
- ¾ cup neutral oil (such as expeller pressed canola oil)
- 3 large eggs
- 1¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, divided
- One 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree
- ¾ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Generously butter a large bread pan (see Note), or spray it with cooking spray.
- Step 2 In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking soda, 2 teaspoons of the cinnamon, the nutmeg, clove, allspice and salt. Use a whisk to stir them until all the spices are blended into the flour. In a large bowl use the same whisk to blend the oil, eggs, and 1¾ cup of the sugar, beating just until well combined. Whisk in the pumpkin.
- Step 3 Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture along with the walnuts, and fold the batter together with a rubber spatula just until everything is mixed and no lumps of flour remain. Use the spatula to scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
- Step 4 Combine the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the batter.
- Step 5 Bake the pumpkin bread for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a tester or toothpick inserted deep in the center comes out clean. Test it in several places to be sure.
- Step 6 Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and cool the bread in the pan for at least 30 minutes, then carefully use a knife to ease the bread out of the pan. Run the knife around the edge of the bread inside the pan, gently pushing against the bread from all sides until you can feel the bread shifting slightly in the pan and letting go of the bottom. Tip the pan so that the bread leans out of the pan into your other hand, without turning it completely upside down so you dislodge as little of the cinnamon sugar topping as possible. Return the bread to the cooling rack to cool completely before slicing.
