Moist with a great blend of spices, this pumpkin spice bread with cream cheese is sure to be a favorite this fall! Easy to make and even easier to eat, this bread is great with a cup of coffee!
I have a bit of a confession to make: I don’t care for pumpkin all that much. I know, I know, for someone who loves fall as a season, it’s strange to not be into pumpkin-flavored anything. However, as a baker, I do feel like I need to have a good repertoire of pumpkin desserts to share with people. So, I modified my reliable best banana bread ever recipe to come up with this pumpkin spice bread recipe with cream cheese.
The cream cheese swirl
The swirl that I use on the top of my pumpkin spice bread is totally optional. As you know, I’m extra so I wanted to add some pretty swirls on top. You can just add all the cream cheese filling for your second layer if you’d like.
Variations and add-ins
To be honest, if you want to make this pumpkin spice bread recipe even easier, you can totally omit the cream cheese filling, and just make a plain pumpkin spice bread. It’s going to be delicious either way! Alternatively, if you want some textural elements to add to this bread, you can do that too! You can add dried cranberries and/or pumpkin seeds if you want to keep it within the fall theme. Otherwise, you can just use whatever dried fruit, nuts, and/or seeds that you prefer.
For fruit add-ins, keep them to no more than 3/4 cups. For nut or seed add-ins, no more than 1/2 cup unless you really want it nutty. I would just say that for nut or fruit add-ins, sift them with the flour so that they don’t all sink to the bottom of your bread while cooking.
Tools you’ll need
Ingredients
Bread batter
- 3/4 cups pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling!)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup superfine almond flour
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup butter (melted)
- 2 eggs (room temp)
- 1/4 cup sour cream (room temp)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- pinch of salt
Cream cheese filling
- 4 oz cream cheese (room temp)
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 egg (room temp)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1.5 tbsp flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine the pumpkin puree, both sugars, melted butter, eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract in a large bowl and mix.
- Sift in both the all-purpose flour and superfine almond flour, baking soda, all your spices, and salt. Mix with the wet ingredients just until everything is fully incorporated. Don't over mix! If you're using add-ins, this is when you fold them in into your batter, leaving some to top off the bread.
- In another bowl, mix your cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract using a hand mixer until the cream cheese is soft and creamy and the sugar has been incorporated thoroughly (meaning, not grainy). Sift in your flour and mix again until the filling is homogenous.
- In a greased 1-lb loaf pan*, pour 2/3 of the bread batter and make sure it's evenly spread in the pan. Then, you can add your layer of cream cheese filling and spread evenly. If you're planning on doing a cream cheese swirl on top, you can leave and set aside a few small dollops of the filling.
- Add the rest of your 1/3 bread batter spread it as evenly as you can. If you opted for a swirl, this is when you can put the small dollops of your leftover cream cheese filling, and using a toothpick or a small knife or fork, just swirl the filling around with the top layer of bread batter to your heart's content. If you decided to have add-ins, this is also when you can top it off with the remaining add-ins.
- Bake for 1 hour. After baking, let it cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.
Notes
*Please note that this recipe is for a 1-lb loaf pan. The dimensions are 8.5 x 4.5 x 2.75. If you only have a 9x5 loaf pan, that's fine too, but your bread will just be a little shorter than mine.
// ON THE SCENE
- Back backdrop: Replica Surfaces — Concrete
- Bottom backdrop: Replica Surfaces — Cement
- Props: gauze towel, farmhouse wood tray
1 comment
[…] I mentioned in my pumpkin spice cream cheese bread recipe, I’m not the biggest fan of pumpkin. However, I do acknowledge that pumpkin dessert recipes […]