One-Bowl Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
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Two sweet recipes in a row! It must be THAT time of year…
Actually, I am thrilled that it’s October and that the weather’s gotten cooler. For one thing, I can now use my oven again without dire, sweaty consequences. I’m excited about chilly mornings and cool evenings: needing a hot cup of coffee to warm up my fingers when I sit down at my computer each day, and needing a blanket to curl up under at night.
I know there are some who would consider Santa Barbara to be a place that never quite gets hot enough, but for me it’s gotten plenty hot, especially since this drought hit. So I treasure every single one of the cool, misty days when the marine layer floats in over the mountains, and I can briefly pretend that we have seasons here, and that it’s fall.
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I’ve been doing just fine without the Wisconsin winters of my childhood, but I do miss those two perfect weeks of Wisconsin Octobers with their crisp air and bright fall colors. Paula and I briefly visited Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and while on our own private nostalgic walking/snacking tour of West Philly, we got to step on a good number of crunchy fallen leaves – the leaf-crunching was almost as satisfying as our vegan tofu hoagie banh mi (thank you, Fu-Wah mini mart).
Now that my oven is once again operational, all sorts of baking and roasting activities have recommenced: pizza, brownies, and polenta, roasted broccoli, haricots verts, and ingredients for tomatillo salsa. But nearly all of these have been Paula projects – and she’s been doing all of the dishes, too, because of my tendinitis issues. So when she brought home a can of pumpkin puree – the first of the season! – and asked me to make my my sister Jess’s pumpkin chocolate chip bread, I couldn’t refuse.
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This is a lovely, simple recipe for a pumpkin quick bread with the additions of chocolate chips and walnuts, but you can add whatever you like.
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The best part is that it calls for one can (or two cups) of pumpkin puree, and makes two loaves of bread: one to enjoy right away, and one to freeze for later. Wrapped tightly in tin foil, quick bread will keep well in the freezer, and will defrost perfectly overnight if set out at room temperature.
The other best part is that it only dirties one bowl (we’ve been pretty dishes-conscious around here since the tendinitis onset). As it turns out, this is a pretty good recipe for someone with RSI hand pain, other than chopping the walnuts and transferring the batter from the heavy bowl to the loaf pans, both of which Paula did for me.
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The pumpkin bread will be a little crumbly if you cut into it while it’s still warm – something that’s hard to resist — but it will firm up as it cools. Rich with cinnamon and cloves, the bread is not too sweet other than the dots of melty chocolate. The bitterness of the walnuts helps balance out the other flavors while adding a little textural contrast and crunch.
I love the ends and the top of the loaf, which makes me think this recipe would also translate well to a muffin tin, where you’d get an even better muffin-top-to-bottom ratio… (I’m sure that would work — instead of each loaf, you could probably get around 12 small muffins — but if you try it, make sure you check on them frequently, since the muffins will have a much shorter baking time than a whole loaf of bread.)
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Sure, the last thing the internet needs right now is another pumpkin recipe, but let’s say you were hypothetically looking for one GOOD pumpkin recipe, instead of 50 mediocre ones… trust me my sister: this is it!
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Print this recipe. (PDF)
RECIPE:
One-Bowl Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
(Makes 2 loaves)
Active time: 15 minutes; Total time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.
Ingredients:
~ 2½ cups flour
~ 2 cups sugar
~ 2 tsp. baking soda
~ 1 heaping tsp. ground cinnamon
~ ½ tsp. ground cloves
~ dash ground nutmeg
~ 2 eggs
~ 15-16 oz. pumpkin puree (about 2 cups; either canned or homemade)
~ ½ cup vegetable (or other) oil
~ ¾ cup chocolate chips
~ ¾ cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
How to make it:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees, and grease two loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the eggs, pumpkin puree, and vegetable oil. Stir until the dry ingredients have just been incorporated, sprinkling in the chocolate chips and walnuts as you stir. Be careful not to overmix the batter. Then transfer equal amounts of the batter to the two greased loaf pans.
4. Bake loaves for 1 hour, then allow to cool a bit in the loaf pans before transferring to a serving board/plate. (Or allow to cool to room temperature, then wrap tightly in foil and freeze for up to two months; defrost overnight at room temperature.)
Print this recipe! (PDF)
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Related recipe posts:
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| Gluten-free Halloween Pumpkin Cupcakes | Pumpkin Ginger Walnut Cookies & Homemade Pumpkin Puree | Pumpkin Pancakes | Banana Biscoff Muffins (Vegan) |
spontaneous tomato 
Great minds think alike – I bought a can of pumpkin last night to make this pumpkin bread this weekend! :)
Nice! Yeah, Paula is obsessed with it and has been wanting me to make it again for ages… We also still had one loaf in our freezer from last winter all the way until earlier this summer, so I think that reminded her about it, out of oven-using season, and fueled her obsession. :)
looks delicious! I will add this to the Thanksgiving menu this year!
Thanks! I’m glad to hear it! :) I’ve never made this for Thanksgiving, but that’s actually a great idea — especially because I could just make it ahead of time & stick it in the freezer…
yes to this. befitting the season, our csa has garnered quite the array of squashes and i’ve roasted & pureed few, that now need uses for. this is exactly what i’ve been looking for.
it is crisper here, not to make you jealous or anything, but fall is definitely in the air and turning on that oven is sooooo nice!
Aw man… you did kinda make me jealous… but then I know that will probably only last until winter sets in on your coast.
And yes, this bread could probably be good with homemade purees of other squashes besides pumpkin too! (After all, it’s not counting on the pumpkin for *that* much flavor in the first place — a lot of that gets added in.) Let me know if you find something that works nicely!
This looks so delicious! It’s everything I love in one bowl. I’d probably eat the batter first. Yum! I do love fall and walking on crunchy leaves.
Thanks, Amanda! I’ve never actually been that tempted by this particular batter… but that doesn’t mean I didn’t snack on plenty of chocolate chips while I was taking these photos :)
Looks yummy! There can never be too many pumpkin recipes ;)
Thanks! I hope that’s true… I agree there can never be too many simple pumpkin recipes — I think my favorite is always going to be basic pumpkin pie!
One bowl has some delicious results, I wouldn’t mind a big piece of this :D
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Thanks, CCU! :)
Yum!! I love easy bread recipes, especially if pumpkin is involved! :)
Yes, me too! Now that I realized how simple (and good) this quick bread is, my next mission is to figure out a good one- (or two-) bowl banana bread, since the one that I’m used to making (which is REALLY good) uses three bowls and is a mess to clean up after!
I love the sound of one-bowl. Looks great!
Thanks! It certainly makes it seem easier to dive into a recipe, knowing that it’ll be pretty fast and with minimal clean-up. :)
I’m making this tomorrow for company!!
Yay!! This kind of comment makes me soooo happy. I hope you & your company all enjoyed it!
This is one of my favorite things to make! I just love how well pumpkin, pumpkin spices and chocolate compliment each other. :)
Yep, me too! I think my sister’s original recipe actually had raisins instead of chocolate in this bread (ew) (and such a shame, because the chocolate goes with it so well!).
I love this!!!
Thanks, Liz! :)
Looks delicious, I’d love to try it. Not sure I can get pumpkin puree in a can over here (that’s where the internet magic comes in) but I could make it from scratch on a cold weekend. And thank you for the pdf version of the recipe, so handy.
Thanks for commenting! :) I have links to PDFs of my recipes going all the way back to my first-ever blog post (I just didn’t start labeling them with a “(PDF)” next to the link until later posts).
Hm, too bad you can’t find canned pumpkin puree, since that is definitely the easiest — and more consistent in terms of the amount of liquidiness compared to homemade purees. But I’m sure you could make this with homemade puree too! (And if the batter seems a little too liquidy or a little too dry, you can add a tiny bit of extra flour or oil, respectively.)
Great tips there! I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes :)
This looks so good!
Thanks. :) It is!
Amazing!!! I studied in California for the Fall in 2008, and I ALWAYS miss the ‘Fall food’ at this time of year. London in no way does it as well as California. I discovered pumpkin while over there (we don’t have it as much here) but will have to have a go at this recipe as it looks awesome. Thank you for sharing!! :) XXXXX
Aw, thanks for your comment! I’m sorry you’re “homesick” for fall food in California. As someone who’s from the Midwest — Wisconsin — with real seasons, I think the idea of being nostalgic for fall in practically-seasonless California is a little funny… but then I totally know what you mean about markets & grocery stores rolling out their fall products, with pumpkin-flavored everything! I would probably miss that if I lived outside of the states again, too.
Anyway, I bet it’d be worth trying this out with some other kind of squash puree if that’s what you can get (either canned or homemade) in London! Hope you get a chance to try it sometime. :)
Wow, what a simple and marvelous looking recipe! And I love the “chocolate chip” napkin :-)
Thanks! :) Haha, yep, that’s a brand new dishtowel (which means it gets featured in at least one blog post before it needs ironing, and then gets washed and used around the kitchen after that). (I really hate ironing….) I think it was a good choice for these photos, too, although for a split second there I almost went for a completely-bright-orange one instead, but now I’m glad I didn’t.
If I was in the kitchen with you, I’d ask to pick the bowl! :) i KNOW that was good
Haha, thanks! Yep, this bread is always a treat :)
Lovely pictures! The second one of the batter itself, that’s where I would have started snacking, wouldn’t be able to resist the creamy pumpkin batter and chocolate chips!!
Thanks! That seems to be a popular sentiment in this comment thread :)
This looks amazing! I will definitely be making this, it looks so wonderful! Your pictures are so flawless too.
Thank you!
That’s really nice of you to say about the pictures, too — I don’t know anything about photography so it’s all trial + error (+ frustration) and I stress a lot about them, but I hope I’m gradually getting better!
Oh this looks delicious. Now I am going to ask a really dumb question. Please forgive me! but to make Pumpkin puree do I just boil the Pumpkin and then throw into the blender? do I need to add any water? Thank you !
Don’t worry, that’s not a dumb question! Here is a link to some instructions for how to make homemade pumpkin puree. It works best if you use a specific type of pumpkin (called a “pie pumpkin”). Basically you (halve &) roast the pumpkin in the oven, then puree it (and you shouldn’t need to add any water).