Pumpkin Bread

pumpkin bread
Recipe makes 2 loaves of pumpkin bread – share one or eat both!

As an Amazon affiliate I receive a small commission at no cost to you if you choose to purchase through one of my links. Thank you for your support!

pumpkin bread

Pumpkin Bread

Spicy, sweet and oh so delicious. Serve it for breakfast or for dessert.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Course bread, Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine American

Ingredients
  

  • 3 ½ cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 15 oz can pumpkin NOT pumpkin pie filling, just plain pumpkin puree
  • cup water

Instructions
 

  • Preheat oven to 350° F.
  • Stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves.
  • In a separate bowl, cream together oil and sugar.
  • Add in eggs and mix well.
  • Add pumpkin and mix well again.
  • Add about half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined, then pour in half of the water and mix until combined, then repeat with remaining dry ingredients and water.
  • Divide batter evenly into two greased loaf pans and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  • Cool for 10 minutes then turn out of pans onto a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.

Notes

You can use this recipe for pumpkin bread muffins; cut the baking time to 25-30 minutes. Makes at least 24 muffins but possibly 36, it’s been a while since I’ve done it that way.
My grandma used to add raisins as well – if you so desire, add 1 cup of raisins at the very end of the mixing. But as Alton Brown famously says, “Raisins are always optional”.
Keyword pumpkin bread, quick bread, quick breakfast

For more sweet bread, check out our recipe for Banana Bread!

Obligatory Fictional Backstory

I made this recipe for Charles Schultz one Halloween so we would have something to snack on while waiting for The Great Pumpkin to show up in his pumpkin patch. While most people think that Schultz based the character Charlie Brown on himself, he actually is much closer to Linus, right down to carrying a blanket around with him. Just not usually in public.

Anywho, we sat on said blanket while waiting for The Great Pumpkin, discussing philosophy and eating this pumpkin bread. Schultz said it was the best pumpkin bread he’s ever had.


Real Talk

This is a recipe that my grandmother used to make, and as I said above she would add raisins. Sometimes I like raisins in my pumpkin bread but usually I omit them because the rest of the family doesn’t and frankly I’ll eat a whole loaf myself with or without raisins.

Also seriously, my aunt, who is an animator, actually knows Charles Schultz. I’m not sure my earlier statement of him basing the character Linus off himself is accurate but I can ask her and get back with you all if you’re interested.

Speaking of pumpkin patches, I’m a little saddened this year because it may be the first year I don’t go to a pumpkin patch with my dad. We’ve been going every year for the past 25 years or so but with the stupid virus that’s permeating the world we may have to pass this year.

Although, our pumpkin plant currently has three good looking gourds, and I recently went all Rambo on the squash bugs so they may actually survive, so we may just pretend that it’s a patch and I’ll have my dad over to help pick them. Here’s a picture:

pumpkin patch Pumpkin Bread

And a picture of the first pumpkin that ripened back at the beginning of August, that my kids decorated and dubbed “Spikey”:

spikey Pumpkin Bread

If you want to cook a fresh pumpkin, make sure you get one that’s labeled as a “pie pumpkin” as they’ll be better. I’ve been told that the giant green ones make the best pies but I haven’t personally tried them.

Pie pumpkins are generally small enough to fit in a crock pot, so I just drop them in with a little bit of water and let them go for at least 8-10 hours on low. Then you can cut them open, scoop out the seeds and peel the skin off and puree the “meat” of the pumpkin (I refuse to use the word “flesh” it disgusts me – almost as much as the word “moist”). Freeze in 1 quart bags – a 15 ounce can is just shy of 2 cups of pumpkin.

You can also roast them on a baking sheet in a 350° F oven for about an hour to an hour and a half depending on the size, just poke a few holes with a sharp knife before you put them in.


For those who may be dealing with their own squash bug infestation, I will go into more detailed description of how I went “Rambo” on the squash bugs who were decimating my poor pumpkins. If you do an internet search on how to get rid of squash bugs, the answer you keep coming across is basically “You can’t, sorry, your plants will be destroyed and the squash beetles will live forever”.

I was NOT about to accept that answer so I did what a farmer once told me he did to control potato bugs: SHOP VAC. I took the filter out of our shop vac and spent about an hour vacuuming up every single stupid beetle I saw. When I was done I sucked up a mixture of Dawn dish soap and water to drown the bastards. That still didn’t get rid of all of them but it greatly decreased the population.

I still saw some on the actual pumpkins the next day so I dumped a bunch of Dawn onto the pumpkins (not the leaves) and it seems to be keeping the things off. One is almost completely orange, one is turning orange and the third is still green…I’m hopeful that my mitigation efforts will allow them all to mature. I still go out and smush every bug I see.

We need to pull up the weed barrier that is still in the bed nearby because I think they hide out in there. Stinking nature. I saw two jumping spiders and a large wolf spider out near the garden and begged them to start eating the squash beetles but I cannot tell if they listened or not – my spider is a bit rusty. There is a web of sorts in the patch but it looks like that spider is only eating the cucumber beetles (which is helpful as well since I’m fairly sure those darn things are now eating my tomatoes. TOMATOES ARE NOT CUCUMBERS, DAMMIT!!)

1 thought on “Pumpkin Bread”

  1. Pingback: Pumpkin Bread – Give Me The Recipe, Dammit!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.