Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is a fantastic, versatile bread that can be eaten for dessert, breakfast, or just as a snack. I’m also including a basic recipe for cream cheese frosting, because well, pumpkin and cream cheese were made to be together. Mmmm.

I love this bread because it reminds me of my favorite dessert in the entire universe – pumpkin rolls. However, this bread is a lot easier to make! You don’t have to worry about the roll cracking, yet you still get the delicious flavors of pumpkin and cream cheese frosting. MM. Sorry. I’ll stop going on about pumpkin and cream cheese now. You get the idea.

To make 3 loaves, you will need:

For the pumpkin bread:

• 22 ounces pumpkin puree (or 2.75 cups)
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3c water
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar
• 2  cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 1/2 cups white all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs pumpkin pie spice mix (or 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, and 1/2 tsp ground ginger)

For the cream cheese frosting:

• 8 ounces reduced fat cream cheese
• 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
• 6 tbs softened butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Begin by pre-heating the oven to to 350 degrees F. Prepare your  loaf pans with a liberal coating of cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix the wet ingredients + sugars until combined.

If you really wanna do it like I did, at this point you will realize that you only have one loaf pan, and refrigerate the wet mixture while you make a quick trip to the store to buy a pack of disposable loaf pans. Don’t be like me.

In another medium or large bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, and spices.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet mixture, and mix until just blended.

Divide evenly among the loaf pans. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

To make the cream cheese frosting, combine the cream cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla until blended. I recommend storing the frosting separately from the bread and only using as much as you need per serving so that you can refrigerate the frosting without having to refrigerate the entire loaf of bread.

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did! MMM. I’m considering making more after typing this up.

With the holiday season coming up, this bread would make the perfect gift or addition to a gift basket! Just wrap up loaves in disposable loaf pans with cellophane!

The flavor of this bread is actually better after a day. It can be made 2 or 3 days in advance if needed.