This homemade pumpkin bread recipe is easy to make, moist, and packed with cozy spices.

My Favorite Pumpkin Bread Recipe

Although I’m a firm believer that pumpkin bread should be a year-round food, there’s something special about baking a fresh loaf as the leaves start to change. As the weather gets chilly, this pumpkin bread recipe is one of my absolute favorites to make.

It’s super easy to make. You don’t need any special equipment, just some mixing bowls, a whisk, and a spatula. The batter also takes less than 10 minutes to make—and if you’re speedy you can do it in under five. 😉
It’s a great complement to your morning coffee or tea. It’s also a great midnight snack—I don’t think pumpkin bread gets enough credit for this!
It is super moist and flavorful. The secrets to a tasty pumpkin bread are using a lot of pumpkin and lots of spices. If you’re wondering how to make moist pumpkin bread, then keep reading!
Customize it! Add nuts or chocolate chips to the batter for extra flavor and texture.

Key Pumpkin Bread Ingredients

A full list of ingredients is listed in the recipe card, but these are the key ones that you’ll need to make pumpkin bread.

Canned Pumpkin: Choose a quality canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling) for this recipe. I’d recommend using canned pumpkin over homemade pumpkin puree to ensure that the moisture levels in the bread are balanced. Homemade is great but just a little too moist for our needs!
Spices: ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves help create that signature pumpkin spice flavor. The cinnamon and nutmeg are especially important to make sure you don’t skimp on those!
Dry Ingredients: All-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and salt
Large eggs, at room temperature: Soak eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up without cooking them.
Greek yogurt or sour cream: a little bit of this adds moisture and richness to the bread
A neutral oil: you can use avocado, vegetable, canola, or grapeseed oil. Anything that doesn’t have too strong of a flavor works well! Unless you really love the flavor of olive oil–then I’m not one to stop you!

How to Make Pumpkin Bread

Start by combining wet ingredients and sugar in a bowl. Dump the oil, sugars, eggs, yogurt, vanilla extract, and pumpkin into a large bowl and mix them until smooth. Make sure that the mixture is well combined as once you add the flour and spices you will want to avoid mixing too much more.

Mix all wet ingredients with sugar together first until smooth

Add the dry ingredients. Whisk the other dry ingredients and spices together first to ensure they are well mixed and even. Then dump the dry ingredients into the wet. You can alternatively reverse this, and dump wet into the dry depending on which bowl is bigger. Fold the flour in gently until it is just combined—do not overmix, some lumps are ok just make sure there are no streaks of flour.

Fold in dry ingredients until they are just combined and do not overmix.

Bake! I used this Nordicware Harvest Bounty pan to keep things seasonal. However, you can use any loaf pan that you have. The recipe instructions are for a 9”x5” pan, so if your pan is larger or smaller make sure to adjust baking time if needed.

Also, fun fact, you can prepare the batter ahead of time and chill it in the fridge overnight. This actually helps create a taller rise and better texture. It’s something I require you to do in my pumpkin muffin recipe, and it’s applicable here too!

FAQs

Can I use this batter to make pumpkin muffins?

Yes you can! To do so, divide the batter between a lined cupcake tin and bake for 20-22 minutes. Make sure to fill up the tins up the very top (you may only get around 10-11 muffins). You can also check out my favorite pumpkin muffin recipe which is very similar and has more detailed instructions.

How Should I Store Leftovers?

Tightly wrap fully cooled, leftover bread in plastic wrap. It will be good for up to 3 days at room temperature or up to one week in the fridge.

Can You Freeze Pumpkin Bread?

Fully cool the bread—be patient. Then tightly wrap the bread in foil and put into a Ziploc bag to freeze it. You can also pre-slice the bread and freeze each piece individually so that you can enjoy a few slices at a time. Pumpkin bread can be frozen for 1-3 months but throw it out if it becomes freeze burnt.

Did You Make This Recipe?

If so, I’d love to hear from you! Please leave a rating and/or comment to spread the love and help others find this recipe.

Also feel free take a picture and share it with me on Instagram @toppedwithhoney. Looking forward to seeing your decadent caramel mocha cupcakes!

If you’re not ready to bake yet, no problem! Simply hover over any image in this post (pick your favorite), or tap if you’re on mobile, and click the pin icon in the corner to save for later.

More Pumpkin Fun Below

Pumpkin Chai Cake

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Pumpkin Gingerbread Cupcakes