Cream Cheese Filled Pumpkin Bread

"A no-fuss recipe for moist and spongy pumpkin bread with a sweet swirl of cream cheese."

I finally made good on all the talk about “pumpkin flavored everything” and made my first recipe with pumpkin in it. I’ll admit I dragged my feet a little on taking the plunge, since the boyfriend isn’t a fan of pumpkin and honestly I wasn’t even sure how I felt about pumpkin. I think I like the taste of it, but I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had it, meaning that whenever that was it obviously wasn’t that memorable. Somehow or another, I just don’t come across food with pumpkin in it, yet every year I hear everyone raving about it. I guess that’s why it intrigued me, that little voice in my head nagging me to try it – I had to know what all the fuss was about.

Since this was a new recipe for me, I was going to play it safe and make something basic. I almost always do this because I think it’s the best way to learn, to build a solid foundation so you can work you way toward more advanced things. Gotta learn to walk before you can run, right? But I woke up today feeling adventurous, like I wanted to push my limits a bit. Maybe take a few risks. So I went totally crazy and not only made pumpkin bread, but cream cheese pumpkin bread. I know, I know, I’m completely out of control. You might need to hose me down.

I even told the dogs that I’d be making my first pumpkin-flavored recipe today. As you can see, they were thrilled.

But seriously, this recipe? And all my musings about whether or not pumpkin is worth the hype? I’m so completely glad I chanced it. This recipe doesn’t call for yeast or require a fancy mixer, making it easy to whip together. The cream cheese filling smelled like egg nog and it took all my willpower not to eat it right out of the bowl. The house also smelled heavenly while the bread baked, though it reminded me more of Christmas time than Halloween or Thanksgiving. And once the bread was done, it was so moist and spongy I was totally shocked that I actually made this. And it wasn’t hard at all!

If this is what baking with pumpkin is like, I’m going to start putting pumpkin in everything. Wonder if I can sell the boyfriend on steak and pumpkin?

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar divided
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or canola oil or liquid state coconut oil
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice (read below for directions)
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour divided
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 4 oz cream cheese softened

Tools You’ll Need:

• 2 large mixing bowls
• Whisk
• Electric mixer (optional)
• Spatula
• 9×5 bread pan
• Measuring for cups and teaspoons

Instructions:

To kick things off, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray your 9×5 bread pan with a flour cooking spray.

Next up, add the following 10 ingredients to a large mixing bowl: 1 egg, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, vegetable oil, sour cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice (see here for how to mix that together), and ground nutmeg.

Whisk it all together until consistency is watery but smooth.

Next, add in the following dry ingredients: 1 cup of the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and the pinch of salt (or more to taste). Gently fold it together with a spatula, careful not to overmix.

Pour about 1/2 of the pumpkin mix into the 9×5 baking dish. If you’re having trouble measuring this out, I can say from experience that having a thinner bottom layer is preferable over a thicker one. I did the opposite with mine and it gave me trouble later. More on this in a bit.

Smooth out the batter with the spatula, pushing it into the corners and along the sides. Set the pan & the rest of the batter aside for now.

In the other large mixing bowl, add the following ingredients: the other egg, cream cheese, 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, and 3 tablespoons of flour.

With a whisk or electric mixer, stir it all together until it has the consistency of frosting with no clumps.

Grab the 9×5 baking pan again and pour the cream cheese filling on top of the pumpkin batter. Unlike with the first layer, don’t worry about pushing it into the sides, but still spread it around evenly. If you focus the filling more in the center of the pan, the bread will surround the filling while it bakes.

Pour the remaining pumpkin batter on top of the filling. Smooth it around like you did the first layer, pushing it into the sides and corners, but be careful not to disturb the layer of cream cheese underneath. This is what I meant about a thicker top layer – when I reached this part, I was really wishing I had some extra batter to help me get the coverage I needed, especially near the corners.

Place the pan in the oven and bake the bread for 48 minutes. When ready, the top should be domed with a golden color, and a toothpick tester should come out clean or with a few moist crumbs on it. I tried to get a picture of my tester, but not sure if my camera has enough zoom.

Let the bread cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.

And now for the fun part – dressing it up and eating it! You can leave it bare, add frosting, or dust it with powdered sugar like I did.

And that’s it – you’re done!

Did you try this recipe? Do you have a suggestion or correction? Leave a comment & tell me about it!

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Cream Cheese Filled Pumpkin Bread

A no-fuss recipe for moist and spongy pumpkin bread with a sweet swirl of cream cheese.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Grain Bread

Dietary Vegetarian

Fun Seasonal

Prep 15 minutes

Cook 48 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 3 minutes

Servings 6

Author Chrisy

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar divided
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or canola oil or liquid state coconut oil
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour divided
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 4 oz cream cheese softened

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the 9x5 bread pan with flour cooking spray.
2. Add the following 10 ingredients to a large mixing bowl: 1 egg, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, vegetable oil, sour cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and ground nutmeg. Whisk together until consistency watery but smooth.
3. Add the following 4 ingredients to the same mixing bowl: 1 cup of the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and the pinch of salt. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the pumpkin batter, careful not to overmix.
4. Pour 1/2 of the pumpkin batter into the 9x5 bread pan, pushing batter into corners and smoothing with a spatula.
5. To prepare the cream cheese filling, add the following ingredients to another large bowl: the other egg, cream cheese, 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, and 3 tablespoons of flour. Whisk together until filling has the consistency of frosting.
6. Pour the cream cheese filling into the bread pan, smoothing out the filing with a spatula. Do not worry about pressing into corners.
7. Pour the remaining pumpkin batter on top of the filling and spread to cover the sides and corners, careful not to disturb the cream cheese layer beneath.
8. Bake bread for 48 minutes. When ready, the top of the bread should be domed with a golden color, and a toothpick tester should come out clean or with a few moist crumbs on it.
9. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then transfer to an wire rack to cool completely.
10. Add frosting or powered sugar as desired. Serve immediately. Pumpkin bread can store on the counter for 1 week in an airtight container, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.