Pumpkin Bread

abeebakes
This pumpkin bread is adapted from Tartine Bakery’s recipe and it is honestly the only pumpkin bread recipe you need. The texture is incredibly soft, moist, and decadent, much more like a cake. The flavor is as comforting as an Autumn day — full of warm spices (a whopping 5 teaspoons of cinnamon, in fact!) and subtly sweet, not overly so. It’s easy to make and truly delivers a bakery-worthy bread.

Happy October!

Back when I was living in San Diego, I discovered a blogger that conducts bake-off’s from her home and compiles all the data gathered from her taste-testers to narrow down the best recipes from the most popular sources. With each bake-off she breaks down the ratio of ingredients, the textures, the flavors, the bake times, everything. The Pancake Princess has conduced bake-offs from breakfast favorites like cinnamon rolls, waffles, and blueberry muffins to classic desserts like yellow cake, apple pie, and chocolate chip cookies. My favorite though? The pumpkin bread bake-off.

This bread is honestly the best pumpkin bread I’ve ever had. It’s adapted from Tartine Bakery’s recipe and it is honestly the only pumpkin bread recipe you need. It was also the overall winner in the bake-off conducted by The Pancake Princess. The texture is incredibly soft, moist, and decadent, very much like a cake. The actual flavor is as comforting as an Autumn day — full of warm spices (a whopping 5 teaspoons of cinnamon, in fact!) and not as sweet as you’d think with all the sugar in there. The sugar contributes to the moisture and also helps make the mixture of spices comforting rather than overpowering. It’s entirely oil based ensuring the moistest crumb and with no butter, that flavor doesn’t have to compete with the spices.

It reminds me of a slice of pumpkin bread that you would order at a really nice bakery or cafe. It’s worth every single calorie and every single penny. I suggest you make this when you really want to impress others and or just want to enjoy a high quality pumpkin bake with a cup of coffee.

I’m curious, will this make your first pumpkin bake of the season too? I’m interested in knowing if your pumpkin season starts at the end of August, when American society begins pushing everything pumpkin spice? Or does your pumpkin season start when the weather changes? Or perhaps you don’t like pumpkin and prefer to associate Fall with apples?

Pumpkin Bread

This pumpkin bread is adapted from Tartine Bakery's recipe and it is honestly the only pumpkin bread recipe you need. The texture is incredibly soft, moist, and decadent, much more like a cake. The flavor is as comforting as an Autumn day — full of warm spices (a whopping 5 teaspoons of cinnamon, in fact!) and subtly sweet, not overly so. It's easy to make and truly delivers a bakery-worthy bread.

  • 1 2/3 cups Flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp. Baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. Baking soda
  • 5 tsp. Ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsp. Ground nutmeg (freshly ground if possible)
  • 1/4 tsp. All-spice
  • 3/4 tsp. Salt
  • 1 cup + 2 tbsp. Canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
  • 1 cup Grapeseed oil (vegetable or canola oil work too)
  • 1 1/3 cups Sugar
  • 3 Eggs
  • 1 or 2 tbsp. Turbinado Sugar (any coarse sugar will work (or regular sugar) for a crunchy trade-mark top)

  1. Preheat the oven to 325F degrees. Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan; set aside.

  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, all-spice and salt.

  3. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, oil, and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking well between each. Switching to a spatula, gradually fold in the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined and you can no longer see flour streaks; don't overmix.

  4. Transfer the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle evenly with optional coarse sugar.

  5. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. It may need an additional 5 minutes after the 1 hour mark.

  6. Allow bread to cool in its pan for 20 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely. Once room temperature, slice and serve.

Recipe inspired by the Pumpkin Bread bake-off by The Pancake Princess and adapted by Tartine Bakery’s.

This pumpkin bread is adapted from Tartine Bakery’s recipe and it is honestly the only pumpkin bread recipe you need. The texture is incredibly soft, moist, and decadent, much more like a cake. The flavor is as comforting as an Autumn day — full of warm spices (a whopping 5 teaspoons of cinnamon, in fact!) and subtly sweet, not overly so. It’s easy to make and truly delivers a bakery-worthy bread.

3 Comments

  1. Abby!!! This is possibly the kindest review anyone has given me and my blog. I’m so ecstatic you love Tartine’s pumpkin bread as much as me!! Honestly one of the best recipe finds ever! THANK YOU as always for the kind words!!

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    1. Thank you, Erika!! It’s so true — I was just floored by how good this recipe is. And as always, I so appreciate your bake-off’s. They take the work out of roaming every recipe out there to find the best. So thank you!! ❤

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