Homemade pumpkin bread is a favorite fall recipe packed with cinnamon spice and tons of pumpkin flavor. Extra moist and easy to make, this recipe has been a fan favorite for years. You don’t even need a mixer! The days of bland pumpkin bread are behind us.
I originally published this recipe in 2014 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and a few more success tips.
One reader, Laura, commented: “Wanted to say this bread is really good! And last year when I took some of my farmers markets breads to our county fair, this is one of the breads I entered for judging, got a blue ribbon, 1st place, for it! Very good! ★★★★★”
When September rolls around, I have the sudden urge to make every quick bread recipe under the sun. Some of my favorites are banana bread, apple cinnamon bread, and this orange beauty: the BEST pumpkin bread I’ve ever had. This is a favorite pumpkin bread recipe because each slice is incredibly moist and the process is very straightforward. There are no dry crumbs here! This pumpkin bread is also packed with pumpkin and pumpkin spice flavors. I’m telling you… this is some good stuff.
Perfecting This Pumpkin Bread Recipe
When I was testing this pumpkin bread recipe, it took me about 6 or 7 tries to get it just right. After plenty of sunken, soggy, and flavorless loaves, I finally mastered what ingredients and how much of each to use, and the result is pumpkin perfection. The recipe is a lot like these pumpkin muffins.
Here are the key ingredients you need & why:
- Pumpkin: There’s a lot of pumpkin in this recipe because it not only adds flavor, but moisture as well. I always bake with canned pumpkin, but homemade pumpkin puree works too. If you’re interested, here’s how to make pumpkin puree. Make sure you blot your homemade pumpkin puree to rid some of the moisture (not necessary if using canned pumpkin). Simply measure your homemade pumpkin puree, then squeeze out some of the moisture with a paper towel.
- Oil: Adds incredible moisture and lightens up the crumb. Vegetable oil is best, but you can substitute melted coconut oil instead.
- Favorite Fall Spices: Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves… the gang’s all here! These 4 spices complement the pumpkin flavor wonderfully (and are often found together in pumpkin pie and many other pumpkin recipes). You could also use pumpkin pie spice—see my recipe Note below.
- Orange Juice: I know orange juice seems strange here, but don’t be nervous. This bread will NOT taste like oranges. I use orange juice because a little liquid keeps the bread from tasting too dense. Milk works too if you don’t have orange juice, but the subtle orange flavor is like magic in this bread. It just works.
- Chocolate Chips: Optional, but if you’re a chocolate lover, pumpkin + chocolate is always a good idea (looking at you, chocolate marble pumpkin bread!) You can also add chocolate chips to other quick bread recipes like zucchini bread and peanut butter chocolate chip zucchini bread.
Here’s the batter and a couple pictures of the bread without chocolate chips:
Why You’ll Love This Pumpkin Bread Recipe:
- Delicious in the fall
- Smells wonderful while it bakes
- Easy to make—no mixer required
- Extra moist
- Tons of pumpkin flavor
- Loaded with warm spices
- Adaptable—studded with chocolate chips, or use chopped pecans, add a swipe of cinnamon butter, or leave plain
- Similar to banana bread, it tastes even better on day 2 (if it lasts that long!)
I love this pumpkin bread recipe so much that I included it in my first cookbook, Sally’s Baking Addiction. It’s always a hit, especially when pumpkin spice season picks up!
But after 1 taste, you might not want to limit this quick bread to the fall season. 🙂
Another reader, Liz, commented: “This is by far the best pumpkin bread recipe I have made… It’s moist and loaded with flavor. I love the orange juice that adds a fresh flavor to it. I add some orange zest that kicks up the orange flavor a bit. It goes well with the chocolate chips too. ★★★★★”
More Perfect Pumpkin Recipes
- Pumpkin Muffins & Mini Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Muffins
- Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
- Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies & Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
- Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins
- Pumpkin Roll
- Brown Butter Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies & Pumpkin Oatmeal Cream Pies
- Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Pumpkin Bundt Cake
- Pumpkin Coffee Creamer
- Pumpkin Hand Pies
- Recipes to Make With Leftover Pumpkin Puree
For even more inspiration, here are my 30+ best pumpkin dessert recipes.
Print
My Best Pumpkin Bread
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Homemade pumpkin bread is a favorite fall recipe packed with sweet cinnamon spice, tons of pumpkin flavor, and optional chocolate chips.
Ingredients
- 1 and 3/4 cups (219g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg*
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves*
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger*
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 and 1/2 cups (340g) pumpkin puree (canned or fresh)
- 1/2 cup (120ml) vegetable oil, canola oil, or melted coconut oil
- 1/4 cup (60ml) orange juice*
- 2/3 cup (120g) semi-sweet chocolate chips*
Instructions
- Adjust the oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Lowering the oven rack prevents the top of your bread from browning too much, too soon. Grease a metal 9×5-inch loaf pan with non-stick spray. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and salt together until combined. Set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together until combined. Whisk in the pumpkin, oil, and orange juice. Pour these wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently mix together using a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon. There will be a few lumps. Do not over-mix. Gently fold in the chocolate chips, if including.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 60–65 minutes, making sure to loosely cover the bread with aluminum foil halfway through to prevent the top from getting too brown. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean with only a few small moist crumbs. This may be before or after 60–65 minutes depending on your oven, so begin checking every 5 minutes around the 55-minute mark.
- Allow the bread to cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before removing and slicing.
- Cover and store leftover pumpkin bread at room temperature for up to 3–4 days, or in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Tip: Baked pumpkin bread can be frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 9×5-inch Loaf Pan | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Cooling Rack
- Spices: You can use 1 teaspoon store-bought or homemade pumpkin pie spice instead of nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Be sure to still add 2 teaspoons of cinnamon to the batter.
- Oil: Oil is a better choice than melted butter in this recipe. The bread is not as moist and soft if using butter.
- Orange Juice: You can substitute milk (any kind) for orange juice.
- Chocolate Chips: If desired, try using milk chocolate, white chocolate, dark chocolate, or even chopped pecans/walnuts instead of the semi-sweet chocolate chips. You can leave the pumpkin bread plain, too.
- Pumpkin Muffins: This recipe makes 15–18 pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Bake for about 20 minutes at the same oven temperature, or try this similar pumpkin muffins recipe.
- Bundt Cake: Simply make this pumpkin Bundt cake (pretty much this exact recipe) and leave out the cream cheese filling. Add 1 and 1/2 cups chocolate chips if desired. About 1 hour bake time.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Hi Sally, I’m trying to eliminate vegetable oil completely. What do you think of using melted butter, applesauce, or avocado oil instead? Any of these options could work you think?
Hi Mimi, we strongly recommend using an oil with this bread instead of melted butter. It helps keep the bread especially moist. Avocado oil should be just fine.
This is a favourite recipe here, I stock up on large cans of pumpkin when they go on sale and that’s enough for 2 recipes. Last night I made it, and pulled some leftover pumpkin out of the fridge. Because of this the batter was cold, and the loaf took forever to bake! luckily It came just fine, but now I’m a firm believer in room temperature ingredients!
Oh, usually I measure out the individual spices but I tried it with Sally’s pumpkin spice mix and it was even better! Not exactly sure what the difference is, but I’ll stick to that now.
I thought I had the best pumpkin bread recipe from before, used for years, and now I found one that tops it! Awesome suprize! Never hurts to try new recipes!
Came out SO good even though I messed up. I didn’t measure out my leftover pumpkin puree ahead of time and was short 1/2 cup. I did however have some Trader Joe’s pumpkin butter in the cabinet and used that to make up the difference. I also used milk instead of the orange juice and accidentally added in a whole extra 1/4 cup of that. I thought for sure it wouldn’t bake right but I just covered it with the foil a little sooner and cooked SLIGHTLY longer and it came out absolutely perfect. Next time I may whip up a chai crumble topping to add on top and in the middle of the bread.
This recipe is amazing, don’t change a thing. I was disappointed that I didn’t have any orange juice and had to use milk instead but it turned out scrumptious.
Thank you, this one is a keeper 😍
Mine came out super dense. It’s delicious still but not sure what I did wrong!
Hello. When you try to print your recipes the box that pops up for you to accept cookies (even after you accept them) shows up when you try to print. Hope this can be fixed.
Your recipes are fantastic!!
Thanks!
Hi Karla, thank you so much for alerting us about that issue. I have my tech team on it! Will be fixed ASAP.
Hi! Can you help me
Figure out the changes needed if I use whole wheat flour please!??
Hi Sarah, if you swap all whole wheat flour here, you can expect the bread to be denser and drier. We would recommend trying half whole wheat and half AP flour instead of all whole wheat. You could also try this recipe for whole wheat mini pumpkin muffins if the craving hits!
I love this recipe. I always double it and put mini chocolate chips in it and in 2 days both loaves have been eaten! I also give loaves away around Christmas as gifts to my friends and neighbors. I like both versions: milk and orange juice.
This is my FAVORITE way to use pumpkin as soon as the weather chills, so much so that it’s simply been dubbed “loaf”. I’ve made this countless times and it always comes out moist and not overly sweet. It’s a huge hit with all who try it!
The bread as written has far too much oil and sugar in it. It tastes like a store bought cake rather than a bread. If you want a pumpkin bread try a different recipe.
Hi Mimi, Thanks for trying this recipe and for your feedback. A sweet “quick bread” is named that because of the loaf shape and preparation method, but you are correct that the the texture and flavor are generally much closer to cake. So they’re typically meant to be moist, tender, and noticeably sweet, rather than taste like a traditional yeast bread. Of course, sweetness is very personal, so we completely understand that it may taste sweeter than some people prefer.
My bread was very very sweet what did i do wrong
Hi Grace Anne, the bread should be slightly sweet as written. Did you accidentally use pumpkin pie filling by chance, instead of pumpkin puree? Pumpkin puree is required here. It’s labeled as such and the only ingredient is pumpkin. Pumpkin pie filling is different and contains added sugar and ingredients, which will result in a different outcome for the bread.
This recipe is absolutely incredible! I’ve never left a review on a recipe, but I had to for this one. The loaf was very moist, the flavors were deepened. I was skeptical about the orange juice, but it really enhanced the pumpkin and spices. I also liked using the individual spices rather than pumpkin pie spice. Excellent!
Perfect, most delicious pumpkin bread recipe! I followed exactly EXCEPT I added a handful of sultanas. Plump little pockets of juicy sweetness.
I must admit this is my favorite pumpkin bread recipe. I didn’t have OJ, so I used the suggested substitution of milk, and it came out perfect. The chocolate chips help balance out the warm spices. Mine was baked perfectly at 60 mins.
Just wonder if I might try a light whole wheat flour or half whole wheat/all purpose flour in this recipe without a dramatic flavor change?
Also could I use Avocado oil without changing taste & texture.
Thank you!
Hi Elizabeth! Avocado oil should be just fine. We would try half whole wheat and half all purpose flour. Let us know how it goes!
First time making pumpkin bread and this recipe was easy to follow and came out great! I did use butter instead of oil (was out of oil) and the loaf was perfectly moist. It was Kerrygold which I think has a higher fat content than most American butters so maybe that helped?
Is the temperature and time the same if you are using a glass loaf pan?
A glass pan is fine, Natalie! Just make sure it’s a true 9×5 inch pan. It may take a few more minutes to bake through.
Is there a gluten free modification?
Hi Lauren, we haven’t tested it ourselves, but some readers have reported success using a 1:1 gluten free all-purpose flour blend in many of our recipes. We’re unsure if the results may change, but let us know if you do give it a try!
I made this without chocolate chips to make it a bit lighter and less sweet, so good! Amazing recipe.
Could you make muffins with this recipe instead of a loaf?
Hi Dawn, This recipe makes 15–18 pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Bake for about 20 minutes at the same oven temperature, or try this similar pumpkin muffins recipe.
Love pumpkin! How would I adjust this recipe if I omit the eggs due to allergy?
Hi Sheena, we haven’t tested an egg-free version of this bread so we’re unsure of the best substitute. Let us know if you give anything a try!
The recipe worked well using Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer
Absolutely delicious! Thank you for the awesome recipe.
Can this be doubled.
Hi Donna, for best results, we recommend making 2 separate batches rather than doubling.