Pumpkin Bread

An Easy, No-Fail Pumpkin Bread

Those of you who’ve been following the blog for some time (👋🏻) know that I’ve never really been a big pumpkin fan myself. I’ll eat it and even enjoy it, but I’d much rather have something chocolate. Zach, however, loves pumpkin and every year insists upon at least a few recipes (and I get a lot of requests from readers every year, too!). You have him to thank for my pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin muffins, and he takes the responsibility of being my #1 taste-tester on all things pumpkin very, very seriously. After begging me for weeks for a pumpkin bread, I finally caved and set to work developing the perfect recipe (by his standards, anyway!). It took nearly ten tries but here we are, and I hope you love this recipe as much as Zach does!

What You Need

Brief overview. Recipe is easy, here’s what I use.

Pumpkin. Canned pumpkin is perfect for this recipe, but make sure you grab a can that is 100% pumpkin and not “pumpkin pie mix” which contains additives that you do not need.Oil & Butter. Oil adds to the moisture of the bread while butter gives us a great flavor.Sugar. I use both brown sugar and granulated. I like dark brown because it adds extra moisture and flavor, but light brown will work instead.Eggs. You will need two. I recommend large eggs but have successfully used extra large and even jumbo in this recipe.Buttermilk adds moisture and flavor to pumpkin bread.Flour. Make sure you don’t accidentally over-measure your flour! I only recommend using all-purpose flour.Baking powder & baking soda. The two work together to give this cake the proper lift and texture.Pumpkin spice & cinnamon. While pumpkin spice already contains cinnamon, I like to amp up the cinnamon tones by adding a bit extra. Don’t forget you can always make your own pumpkin spice!Salt & vanilla extract. For flavor.

Tip: If you don’t have buttermilk, try my easy buttermilk substitute instead! Pour ¾ teaspoon of either white vinegar or lemon juice into a measuring cup, then add whole milk and fill to the ¼ cup line. Stir briefly and let sit for 5 minutes before using! Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!

How to Make Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin bread batter couldn’t be easier to prepare: It’s very similar to my well-loved banana bread, only there’s no banana-mashing required.

Vanilla Glaze

I like to drizzle the top of my pumpkin bread with a vanilla glaze. This is essentially the same one I use on my bundt cake and is slightly enriched with a bit of melted butter. You can skip this glaze and either sprinkle the batter with some granulated sugar for texture/flavor just before baking (which I did in my video) or skip it entirely.