This pumpkin chocolate chip bread is incredibly moist and packed with fall flavors of pumpkin and cinnamon. While homemade pumpkin bread is great on its own, the addition of chocolate chips takes this recipe over the top. Another great thing about this pumpkin loaf recipe is that it’s a quick bread, so no mixer or long rising times are required.
When the fall season finally begins to set in and hoodie weather arrives, I love making pumpkin inspired recipes like pumpkin spice muffins or one of my favorite cheesecakes, my pumpkin swirl cheesecake. This chocolate chip pumpkin bread is a new favorite and falls somewhere between the muffins and a pumpkin chocolate chip snack cake in taste and texture.
What makes quick bread recipes like this pumpkin bread with chocolate chips nice and easy to make is that there’s no yeast involved. This eliminates the need for any proofing or long single or double rise times. There’s also no need for creaming ingredients like butter and sugar together, so the entire recipe can be made with a whisk instead of a hand or stand mixer.
I love fall bread recipes like this pumpkin chocolate chip bread and my healthier whole wheat cinnamon apple bread. Quick breads are easy to make and between putting them together, baking, and cooling, you can generally eat them within 2 hours of starting. You can fill them with fall flavors too like pumpkin, apple, pear, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.
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🥘 Ingredients
Most of the ingredients for this chocolate chip pumpkin bread recipe you will probably already have on-hand. The ingredients for a quick bread are also pretty similar to an enriched bread but swapping the yeast for baking powder and soda.
Flour – All-purpose flour is fine here. If you want a slightly healthier and different taste, you could also swap out ¾ cup of the AP flour with whole wheat flour.
Leaveners – Use both baking powder and baking soda for the rising agents in the recipe.
Spices – A combination of ground cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice boosts the flavor in the bread. If you don’t have it, homemade pumpkin pie spice is easy to make. Alternatively, you could replace that with some ground ginger and nutmeg and a little more ground cinnamon.
Sugar – Use a mixture of both white and brown sugar for flavor and texture.
Fat – Because of the high moisture content in the pumpkin puree, there’s no butter in this recipe. Instead use just vegetable oil for the fat as that will help reduce the gluten formation in the flour and keep the bread moist and not tough or crumbly.
Milk – Another source of both fat and flavor, use just a bit of milk. Whole milk works best, but any milk here is fine.
Eggs – Use two, whole large eggs at room temperature here as a binder.
Pumpkin – This pumpkin bread has a lot of pumpkin puree in it, giving the final bread lots of flavor, moisture, and color. Be sure to use pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie mix as the latter contains additional spices, sugars, and additives you don’t want here.
Vanilla – Optional, but I like just a bit of vanilla extract here to balance some of the flavors.
Chocolate – Optional, but I love the addition of chocolate chips to this pumpkin loaf. Almost any chocolate chips or mini chips or chunks work fine here. I used regular, semi-sweet chocolate chips in this recipe.
🔪 How to Make
This easy pumpkin bread recipe comes together quickly in just two mixing bowls and a loaf pan and requires no rising, kneading, or mixers.
Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C and prepare an 8 ½” x 4 ½” loaf pan with a parchment or foil sling, or simply spray with a flour-based cooking spray and set aside.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices and set aside.
In a larger mixing bowl, combine both sugars, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Whisk together until the sugar is dissolved and there’s no visible streaks of egg.
Now add the pumpkin puree and milk and continue whisking until everything is well combined.
Add the dry mixture into the pumpkin mixture and whisk until just combined. Add the chocolate chips and fold them into the batter without over mixing it.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake on the center rack of the oven for 60-70 minutes until a toothpick or cake tester comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs on it. Begin checking around 55 minutes, and if the center is still wet, keep checking every 3-5 minutes until done. If you notice the top getting a little too dark, cover lightly with tented foil around the 30-minute mark.
Once finished baking, remove from the oven and let it cool in the loaf pan until cool enough to handle, at least 15-20 minutes. Use the sling to remove the bread or invert the pan and slide it out with your hand. Place on a cooling rack until cooled to room temperature before slicing and serving.
📖 Variations
I love this pumpkin chocolate chip bread just the way it is, but there are a few variations you can try as well. The best pumpkin bread recipe is the one you enjoy the most and can call your own.
Toppings & Fillings
Regular Pumpkin Bread – If you’d prefer a regular pumpkin bread without chocolate chips, simply omit them from the recipe. No other changes are necessary.
Other “Chips” – While chocolate and pumpkin go great together, you can experiment with other mix-ins as well. Try swapping out the chocolate chips for cinnamon chips, caramel chips, or even toffee chips for great flavors also.
Pumpkin Bread with Nuts – In addition to the chocolate chips, or in place of them, you could also use nuts as a filling. The best options would be walnuts or pecans, but you could also try almonds, pistachios, macadamia nuts, or hazelnuts. I suggest toasting them first and then coarsely chopping them before adding them to the batter. Whether combining with chocolate chips or using them alone, try to keep mix-ins to a maximum of 1 cup to maybe 1 ¼ cups.
Pumpkin Streusel Bread – For a streusel style pumpkin bread, simply combine about ⅓ cup flour, ¼ cup cold butter, 3-4 tablespoons of brown sugar, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice until you have a crumbly mixture to top the bread with. Alternatively, double the amount, add half the batter to the loaf pan, add half the streusel mixture, and add the rest of the batter. Then use the remaining streusel mixture to top the batter for flavor inside and on top of the pumpkin loaf.
Other Toppings – Other toppings include more chocolate chips or mini chips on top of the loaf, or some rolled oats for added texture. Keeping it simple, you can also just top the bread with a layer of some coarse sugar like turbinado or demerara.
If you do use any sort of topping, I DO recommend using a parchment or foil sling for the loaf pan. Trying to invert a pumpkin chocolate chip bread with a topping will cause the topping to break apart everywhere.
Dietary Variations
Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bread – While I haven’t tried this personally, you should be able to use a gluten free cup for cup flour to make this a GF recipe. Avoid using a single GF flour like almond or rice flour however, and if the GF flour you use doesn’t list xanthan gum in the ingredients, add about a ¼ teaspoon. Also, be sure the baking powder you use is GF and you’ll need to either make a sling or use butter to grease the loaf pan and not baking spray. Some gluten free flour needs a bit longer to cook as well, so keep an eye on the cooking time.
Healthy Pumpkin Bread – As mentioned in the ingredients, instead of 1 ¾ cups of all-purpose flour, you can replace the ¾ cup with whole wheat flour. Replacing 100% of the flour with whole wheat flour may change the structure, so if you want a fully whole wheat version, I suggest looking for a recipe specifically made for that. Other changes include omitting the chocolate chips and you can probably reduce the sugar about ¼ cup of each. Removing too much sugar or using replacements can radically alter the structure of the bread, however. You can also replace the oil with unsweetened applesauce, but the bread will be slightly drier and denser.
Vegan Pumpkin Bread – While the recipe is already vegetarian, if you want a vegan-friendly version you’ll need to make just a few more tweaks. Be sure to use sugar that is vegan, and they make vegan chocolate chips made with oat milk. Replace the milk with orange juice or a non-dairy milk like almond or oat milk (one of those two would taste best). For the eggs, you can use a flaxseed replacement, unsweetened apple sauce, or just increase the pumpkin puree by a ½ cup.
💭 Frequently Asked Questions
Always use which one is called for in a recipe. Most pumpkin recipes call for pumpkin puree because pumpkin pie filling has additional ingredients like added sugar and spices and preservatives. These additions can mess with the recipe and make it not only overly sweet or potent but can also mess with the desired structure.
Pumpkin chocolate chip bread can be left out at room temperature for at least 3-4 days. If you’re planning to keep it longer than that, you can refrigerate it for at least a week instead.
As with most quick breads, continue baking until an inserted toothpick or cake tester comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs. If the bread has a crack down the top, stick the toothpick in there to check for doneness. The bread will continue to cook and set in the loaf pan after removing from the oven, so don’t wait until a toothpick comes out 100% clean or it’s going to overcook.
Don’t worry if your pumpkin bread has a large crack on top, this is normal. Most quick breads are wet batters, so the outside cooks faster than the inside. As the bread continues to cook, the inside will start to rise and break through the already cooked top, causing the crack but allowing the interior to cook fully. It’s only an issue if your quick bread begins to form a lot of irregular cracks all over the top surface.
🍽 Equipment
Pumpkin chocolate chip bread doesn’t need any fancy equipment, but I’ll mention just a few things I do recommend using.
Whisk – While I like using a balloon whisk for most of the mixing, Danish dough whisks are perfect anytime you need to fold in ingredients like the chocolate chips here without overmixing. I switch to this when I begin adding flour.
Loaf Pan – There’s a number of loaf pans out there, and the correct size does make a difference. This recipe calls for a 1-pound loaf pan, which measures 8 ½ x 4 ½ inches. I prefer the listed USA pan loaf pan for most recipes.
Bowl Scraper – A cheap bowl scraper made of stiff but flexible plastic or nylon are amazing for recipes involving batters or doughs. I use one here because it contours to the shape of the mixing bowl to easily scoop out all the chocolate chip pumpkin loaf batter and it helps to spread and level it out in the loaf pan.
❄️ Storage
Chocolate chip pumpkin bread can be stored at room temperature for 3-4 days, or 1 week when refrigerated. Wait for it to cool completely and wrap in plastic wrap, or an airtight storage container if you slice the whole thing before storing.
This recipe also freezes well for longer storage or if you’re making it more than a week ahead of time. Once cooled completely, wrap in plastic wrap and again in aluminum foil and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature before serving.
📋 Recipe
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- ½ cup neutral oil
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
- 1 ½ cups pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling
- ¼ cup milk
- ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C and prepare an 8 ½” x 4 ½” loaf pan with a parchment or foil sling, or simply spray with a flour-based cooking spray and set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice and set aside.
- In a larger mixing bowl, combine ½ cup granulated sugar, ¾ cup brown sugar, 2 eggs, ½ cup oil, and a ½ teaspoon vanilla extract. Whisk together until the sugar is dissolved and there’s no visible streaks of egg.
- Now add 1 ½ cups of pumpkin puree and a ¼ cup milk and continue whisking until everything is well combined.
- Add the dry mixture into the pumpkin mixture and whisk until just combined. Add ¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and fold them into the batter without over mixing it.
- Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake on the center rack of the oven for 60-70 minutes until a toothpick or cake tester comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs on it. Begin checking around 55 minutes, and if the center is still wet, keep checking every 3-5 minutes until done. If you notice the top getting a little too dark, cover lightly with tented foil around the 30-minute mark.
- Once finished baking, remove from the oven and let it cool in the loaf pan until cool enough to handle, at least 15-20 minutes. Use the sling to remove the bread or invert the pan and slide it out with your hand. Place on a cooling rack until cooled to room temperature before slicing and serving.
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