The Best Homemade Pumpkin Bread Recipe

This amazing Pumpkin bread recipe is incredibly easy to make and is loaded with chocolate chips and walnuts making it light, fluffy, and delicious!

Pumpkin bread is a simple quick bread recipe that consists of a standard wet to dry ingredient mix that is mixed with pureed pumpkin and then baked. Believe it or not, pumpkin bread has a rich history stemming back to Native Americans and Indians.

The cultivation of gourd produce, and utilizing every single piece of food, led to the creation of gourd breads which is essentially how pumpkin bread was born. You can also use fresh cooked down pumpkin if you’d like to make this recipe completely from scratch.

Ingredients for this recipe:

• 2 sticks melted unsalted butter
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• ¾ cup sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ¼ cup whole milk
• 3 cups pumpkin puree
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• pinch of sea salt
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup roughly chopped walnuts
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Serves 16

Prep Time: 15

Cook Time: 60 minutes

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. In a large bowl whisk together the butter and sugar until completely mixed.
3. Next, add in 1 egg at a time until completely mixed in.
4. Pour in the vanilla, oil, and milk until combined and then pour in the pumpkin puree and whisk them in.
5. Now, whisk in the baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until completely mixed.
6. Whisk in the flour until it is combined and then thoroughly fold in the walnuts and chocolate chips using a rubber spatula.
7. Divide the batter between 2 9x5 loaf pans that have been sprayed with nonstick spray.
8. This part is optional but mix together 1/2 cup of packed light brown sugar with 1/2 cup of pepitas (pumpkin seeds) and evenly sprinkle it over the top of the bread loaves.
9. Bake at 350° for 75-80 minutes or until browned and cooked in the center. If you press a toothpick in the center, it should come out relatively clean. It should have an internal temperature of 198°.
10. Remove from the oven and set on a rack and cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing and serving.

Chef Notes:
Make-Ahead: You can make this pumpkin bread recipe up to 1 day ahead of time.

How to Store: Keep covered at room temperature for up to 3 days or cover and keep in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. This will freeze well covered for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator until soft.

You can just use oil, or just use milk, or a combination of both like I did in this recipe. You can also swap out the milk for full-fat yogurt.

Feel free to swap out the walnuts with pecans if you’d prefer.

You can easily make 24 muffins using this recipe if you prefer pumpkin muffins instead. Bake them for 25-28 minutes.

Discard the use of chocolate chips if you do not want them.

If you do not want the pepita brown sugar topping, you can swap out for a glaze. Once the bread is completely cooled, make the glaze from my polenta cake recipe and pour it over the top.