In this post, we attempt to sort through the thousands of pumpkin bread recipes on the internet to figure out the best, once and for all.
Methodology
To start, I scraped 40 pumpkin bread recipes off the internet and analyzed them by percentage of ingredients. I then tried to select the 12 most unique recipes and then on one very long Saturday, my all-star baking friend, Jacqueline, and I baked all 12 loaves and held a tasting with 24 friends to see which one fared the best.
We omitted all mix-ins and toppings like nuts, chocolate chips and crumbles, unless it was a really simple topping like sugar for the purest pumpkin bread tasting experience.
Below, you can see the ingredient composition of each recipe, in order from lowest percentage of pumpkin to highest.
Best Pumpkin Bread Results
The far left of this data visualization shows the results to our question “how would you rank this pumpkin bread on a scale from 1-10?” Recipes are listed by score from highest to lowest (i.e. Tartine was #1 with an average score of nearly 8). The shaded bar represents the 25-75 percentile of ratings.
In the middle section, you can see how people ranked the moistness of each bread on a scale of 1-10 (1 being extremely dry, 5 being ideal, and 10 being overly moist). As you can see, the top-rated breads tended towards the moist side of the scale whereas some of the lower (but not all!) of the lower-rated breads were rated as dry. We had some problems baking Cook’s Illustrated, and Epicurious was tasted right out of the oven, which likely accounts for their high moisture rating–more notes below the chart.
Lastly, tasters were asked: “would you eat this again?” The far right column is pretty self-explanatory: the most desirable breads were generally the top-rated breads, and that percentage shrinks the father down the list you go.
A few notes on some of the wonkier results since, disclaimer, we are not professional bakers:
- Due to the time constraints of baking 12 loaves in one day, we baked the loaves two at a time. Smitten Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated went in at the same time (just after we raised the temperature from 325 for the first few loaves to 350 degrees for the remainder of the loaves). Unfortunately, both of these loaves exited the oven with dense, spongy bottoms (although the top half of Smitten Kitchen looked normal, and we tried to serve just the normal section to our judges). We’re still not too sure what happened (any enlightenment on this front is welcome!) but in any case, you should especially take Cook’s Illustrated’s rating with a grain of salt–I assume the rankings could have been very different had both loaves been baked properly, and this is probably a factor in why CI’s was rated so moist.
- Also due to time constraints, Epicurious came out of the oven last and in the midst of the tasting. Can room temperature pumpkin bread hold a candle to warm, fresh-out-of-the-oven pumpkin bread? Unlikely no, so assume Epicurious’ ratings are a little inflated (though I still think it’s a very good bread), and that it’s probably a little less moist than indicated above.
- I included Cookie and Kate’s “healthy” recipe and Joy the Baker’s vegan recipe out of curiosity if tasters would be able to detect the difference between more traditional pumpkin breads. Obviously, they definitely, definitely can. However, I think if you made these breads on their own, they are perfectly respectable breads!
And now, my extended thoughts on all the breads in order from #1 to #12.
Analysis of the best pumpkin bread recipe: a discussion on the rankings
Tartine: a decadent, tender pumpkin bread recipe with a lid of sugar that will impress your fanciest foodie friends
With a 96% would-eat-again score and the overall highest rating at 7.7, Tartine (of the San Francisco bakery fame) was the clear winner of the tasting. With one cup of oil per loaf, it’s also hands-down the most decadent. It has a VERY moist, tight-crumbed, melt-in-your-mouth texture akin to cake with a spice mix that is heavy on the cinnamon (5 teaspoons!) and nutmeg. Most importantly, it has a crazy-delicious lid of sugar that shatters when you slice into it. It makes a giant mess and is virtually irresistible.
The Domestic Rebel: an easy, classic, well-balanced butter-based pumpkin bread recipe
I chose Haley’s recipe since it was one of the only recipes I found that used all dark brown sugar. Ultimately, this resulted in a super caramelized looking loaf with an excellent crumb and a crowd-pleasing, well-balanced spice profile (one of my personal favorites). This loaf took a well-deserved 2nd place–did I mention it’s a one-bowl affair? It would be a knockout for best-flavor-for-least-effort except that you do have to cream butter, which is not my personal favorite kitchen task.
PS. If you like the Land O Lakes’ pumpkin bread recipe, it is virtually identical to Haley’s recipe except that it uses regular brown sugar and a different spice mix. Haley’s has more spices overall, which is also why I chose her recipe over Land O Lakes.
Epicurious.: a plush and moist, lightly spiced butter- and oil-based pumpkin loaf
Although tasters were likely biased by tasting this loaf fresh out of the oven, I can attest to the fact that it was still shockingly moist days after the event. Whereas other loaves dried out and became slightly grainy, Epicurious remained moist and plush. I think this can be attributed to the fact that it is the only loaf that used both butter and oil–so it’s kind of a pain to make, but if you’re after a really soft and moist loaf that uses a light hand with the spices, make this bread as written ASAP. It did slide into a cool 3rd place after all, with a whopping 94% that was ready to eat this again.
All Recipes’ Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread: a nearly effortless, classic pumpkin bread recipe with a soft crumb, great crust and subtle spice mix
This tasty oil-based loaf is a breeze to whip up: just a regular two-bowl, dry-into-wet event. It rose very well and had one of the most photogenic cracks across the top of the loaf (which were surprisingly rare among our group) with a beautifully bronzed, crusty exterior, soft crumb, and subtle, balanced spice mix. It’s a pleasing loaf that scored well with a solid 4th place and a 92% would-eat-again rating. I think of this as the “classic recipe:” it epitomizes what I think of when I think about pumpkin bread and shows that great taste doesn’t have to be super complex. It also, composition-wise, is nearly identical to many others online save for the spice mix and assorted mix-ins.
For a point of reference, if you’ve ever made any of the following recipes, you’ll be familiar with this bread: Skip to my Lou, Food Network, Garlic and Zest, Lil Luna, Serious Eats, Frugal Girls, BHG. It’s also very similar to the following recipes: King Arthur, Genius Kitchen (uses brown sugar), My Baking Addiction (slightly less sugar), Taste of Home, Tasty Kitchen, Libby’s Pumpkin Bread via Epicurious (1/2 sugar, ½ brown sugar–side note, not sure why this recipe was different from the Libby’s recipe on the Nestle site), Sweet Tea & Thyme (1/3 sugar, 2/3 dark brown sugar). These are just the similar recipes of the ones I happened to scrape–it’s a very popular recipe for a reason!
Serious Eats’ Spice Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf: a brown butter-based pumpkin bread recipe with a slightly drier texture and a gingerbread-y spice vibe
You know how when you say a word over and over again it starts to lose all meaning? After eating and thinking about pumpkin bread over and over, we had to ask the question: what IS pumpkin bread? The dark look of this loaf + generous amount of ginger contributed to a very seasonal, gingerbread-y vibe, which made us ask: if you can’t taste the pumpkin, is pumpkin bread really just…spice bread? Like gingerbread in cake form? In the case of Serious Eats, this may be so (gingerbread lovers unite!).
This is the only recipe that used browned butter, and this likely contributed to a slightly drier texture since browning butter reduces the overall moisture compared to using regular creamed butter. Still, it snagged a respectable 5th place considering how divisive it was (only 64% would eat again): some thought the texture was too dry while others thought it was nicely spiced–I imagine adding chocolate chips would help boost its rating at any future gathering.
Smitten Kitchen: a giant, plush and slightly bland pumpkin bread recipe with a cinnamon sugar topping
First of all, I love Deb for making a loaf that uses up an entire can of pumpkin puree (how annoying is it to have 1/4 cup of puree left in the can?). This does lead to an absolutely enormous, domed loaf. The cinnamon-sugar lid on top is insanity. It’s very moist and pumpkin-forward with a beautiful bright orange color. The only thing I would change about this would be to increase the spices as I thought it was a bit lacking in spice flavor, and perhaps swap out some white sugar for brown sugar. With a 6th place finish, my hunch is that this loaf was not as affected by our baking snafu that left the bottom dense and spongy: although many people praised the moistness of the loaf, many also expressed a desire for more flavor.
Cook’s Illustrated: a deeply-flavored pumpkin loaf with a relatively complex technique
As always, Cook’s Illustrated had a very elaborate baking technique that resulted in a balanced, caramelized sweetness that was chock-full of depth–one of the best pumpkin bread flavors in my opinion. However, their method was a pain in the butt. We stirred that damn pumpkin puree mix over the stove for nearly 20 minutes trying to get the lumps of cream cheese to melt and in the end, were foiled by some mysterious baking factors, resulting in a dense, underbaked loaf…that some people still enjoyed (comments included “custardy” and “I like how dense this is.”) I apologize to the great folks of CI for the loaf’s likely undeserved 7th place finish.
As for the pumpkin breads that lingered on the lower end of the scale…
Joy the Baker (regular): a slightly drier pumpkin loaf with a crusty exterior
My notes for this bread say: ” Caramelized flavor, love the flavor profile, kind of crusty.” However, others noted that this bread was on the drier side and lacking in flavor (it reminded one taster of cornbread), so clearly not everyone was on the same page. Similarly to our cookie bake off, a lower proportion of egg did not do this loaf any favors in the tasting, leading to a drier texture. Still, 45% would eat again! I would make other loaves again before this one, but I honestly didn’t think it was a bad loaf by any means.
PS. I know it’s weird to have two JTB loaves in a tasting when there’s literally thousands of recipes on the internet, but I wanted to include her vegan recipe and her conventional recipe also stood out since it had a very low percentage of egg and also included heavy cream (which was a very small amount and I don’t think actually made a difference).
Libby’s: a low-fat pumpkin bread recipe with a grainy, spongy texture and very little flavor
Libby’s was one of the recipes that used an alternative liquid (apple juice) to the water that was so typical of more widespread pumpkin bread recipes. However, it was also weirdly low in fat (just 2 tablespoons for a loaf), but it was Libby’s, so I figured there had to be a redeeming factor right? NOT RIGHT. Tasters denounced this bread for its dry, grainy, spongy, and overall weird texture. I would not make this again. (Weirdly, Libby’s also has a pumpkin-cranberry bread with more oil that looks much more promising and a recipe published on Epicurious that proclaims it is also Libby’s, but with very different ingredients ratios. Both would probably be better than this loaf.)
Once Upon a Chef: a bland and slightly dry butter-based pumpkin bread recipe
This loaf kept popping up as the #1 search result when I typed in “best pumpkin bread recipe” and the photos looked SO appealing…alas, although it was a beautiful color, it was strangely bland and a little dry (it was one of the all butter loaves, which tended to be more dry than the oil-based loaves). Unfortunately, I would not make this again.
Joy the Baker (vegan): a slightly crumbly pumpkin bread loaf with a nutmeg-heavy spice mix
Without egg as a binder, this loaf was super significantly more crumbly than the others out of the oven with a slightly sunken top. Most tasters noted the crumbly texture and didn’t enjoy the spice profile. I’ve made this before and think it performs far better as a standalone loaf than relative to other conventional recipes. I’d still make this again for vegan friends, and at least 38% of my friends would eat it!
Cookie and Kate: a healthy pumpkin bread recipe with a grainy texture and unusual flavor
Poor Cookie and Kate. When I ate this bread solo, the taste definitely grew on me, although I still think coconut oil and pumpkin is not the best combination. I’d definitely suggest making this recipe with olive or vegetable oil instead. I think it has the potential to be a good “healthy” bread, but it didn’t stand a chance next to the rest of the conventional pumpkin breads. Only 9% of tasters would eat it again, but there are tons of glowing reviews on Kate’s blog, so if you’re looking for a healthier pumpkin bread, I encourage you to try it!
Tips on making the best pumpkin bread
- Oil makes for a more tender, moist loaf, butter leads to a drier loaf (especially if you brown the butter)
- Oil + butter can lead to a spectacularly plush consistency
- As a general rule, the loaves with a higher proportion egg performed better than those with less (though this was less true for the proportion of fat!)
- Funnily enough, the recipes with more cinnamon performed better (and were my personal favorites–I’m personally not as big a fan of cloves or nutmeg)
- My dream pumpkin loaf would have the flavor from Cook’s Illustrated with the volume from Smitten Kitchen with the crumb/topping from Tartine and the texture from Epicurious, made with the ease of All Recipes. Oh, and the nutrition facts of Cookie and Kate 😉
By the by, this post is part of Sara’s awesome Virtual Pumpkin Party! You can find all the other contributors here. Due to a weekend trip spent literally eating everything I possibly could in Mexico City this past weekend, I didn’t quite finish all the data images I had planned, but will update the post as I have them.
In the meantime, happy pumpkin bread baking! I’d love to hear your thoughts on any VIP pumpkin bread recipes that I might have missed, feedback on the process/analysis/future tastings, or thoughts in general.
PS. For more tasting madness, I also did a chocolate chip cookie bake off last month!
Maria
Hi -I made the Tartine pumpkin bread this morning and it’s outstanding. I was a little worried about the amount of nutmeg but it was perfect as was the cinnamon. I put raw sugar and pumpkin seeds on the top and it gives it a little texture (which I love). I so appreciate all the work you to in these bake offs.Thank you.
Ingeborg
I love your bake-offs, they are so helpful!! I made Tartine and All Recipes and chose to go with Tartine as I found All Recipes got a bit too moist after a day. But fresh out of the oven, it was delicious!
erika
Ahhh YAY Tartine can’t be beat!!
Emma
I love pumpkin bread. Thanks for the recipe.
Mansi
Hi! I love how informative and great your articles are. Can you recommend a List of Citrus Fruits or blogs that go over the same topics? Thanks a lot!
Andy
Hi.
Recently stumbled onto your site. I like what you do.
I’ve been making the Cook’s Illustrated pumpkin bread for a couple of years. One reason I like this recipe is with one 28-oz can of pumpkin I can make four loaves, and that is how many loaf pans I have.
I’ve learned you can significantly cut down the time it takes to incorporate the cream cheese by ignoring the directions and doing it while still over heat. I use half AP/half WW flour. I add the optional walnuts. I grind them up really fine after toasting them. I also add some chopped up fresh cranberries. I never get the under-baked bottom. The strudel topping melts into the bread after a day or so.
Wendy
I love your blog!!!!
What about a blondie bake off?
Have you tried Tate’s Bakeshop blondie recipe? Southampton, NY.
I love tate’s blondies (no nuts), pie crust, her devils food cake recipe, cheesecake brownies, chocolate mousse cake. Out of south Hampton like ina garten aka barefoot contessa.
Courtney’s Cakes made a good levaine style cookie but chocolate andes mint versus chocolate peanut butter chip.
If you like tarts… rolo style claudia fleming chocolate caramel ganache tart.
Chicago’s Mindy Segal cookie book is great! Her chocolate chunk cookie, rugelach (barefoot contessa good too) her sandwich cookies are great! Steps. A good cookie plate mix…
Milkbar… I love her strawberry lemon cake too! That and birthday cake when I lived in nyc.
I love your bake offs!!! Please keep doing them!
Molasses cookie off, blondie no nuts cookie off, chocolate mousse pie off, chocolate babka, black and white cookie, sprinkle cookie, pecan pie bars dipped in chocolate, linzer tart cookies…etc etc.
The best pancakes I ever ate are in nyc…key was whipping the egg whites. So fluffy! The syrup was a butter rum syrup…blueberry or banana walnut.
Sara @ Cake Over Steak
I AM SO OBSESSED WITH THESE POSTS. We seriously need to get together IRL at some point and pull one of these off together. I especially love all of your mathematical data. My mom has a pumpkin bread she’s been making my whole life that is super easy … I’m pretty sure it’s a one bowl recipe. She used to make like 20 loaves every Christmas season to hand out as gifts to teachers and neighbors, etc. I’ll have to pull out her recipe and see how it compares to these ones. I’m also excited to one day tweak her recipe a little bit and I know this post will be SUPER helpful when it comes to that. Thanks for this epic contribution to the pumpkin party!!! xoxo
Selina
Once I made the Tartine recipe a few years back, I never tried another one again! Thanks for assuring me I wasn’t missing out!
erika
Ahh yes!!! So glad to hear Tartine’s recipe validated once again 🙂 Thanks Selina!
Leah Sprague
I love you so much for this!!! This is amazing – especially your charts that show the different ratios of ingredients.
Please please please do more bake-offs!!
erika
Thanks so much Leah! Will do–just searching for some good holiday inspiration right now!
Hannah
I love these bake offs!! Can I be annoying and ask if you’d ever do a black bean brownie bake-off? There are SO dang many of them from all ze bloggers. I want to know THE one to use 😛
erika
Not annoying at all–that’s SUCH a good idea!! You’re right, there are TONS of black bean brownie recipes floating around. I am going to put that on the list because I’m curious too!
Cynthia @ Chic Eats
Thanks so much for the recipe reference, Erika! Appreciate it. And wow, these types of posts are a lot of work. Really well done.
Tartine’s Pumpkin Tea Cake is definitely fantastic – probably one of my favorite quick breads. Elisabeth Prueitt is such a talent.
erika
Thank YOU so much Cynthia for posting the recipe! I couldn’t agree more–it was so unbelievably delicious!
Karen
Oh my gosh what a FUN post!!! I can’t believe all those graphs, that’s intense and by intense I mean AWESOME. off to make tartines bread! Sugar crackle here I come!! Heading over to check out the cookie post!
erika
Hahaha thanks Karen!! Yasssss sugar crackle = the best!! <3333
Abby
Thank you so much for these posts! I couldn’t get enough of the cookie bake-off research and now I get to pour over these results. It’s so incredibly helpful!! I am particularly fascinated by your notes on how spices, eggs, and fats play a role in baking. It’s helpful not only for pumpkin bread but for so many similar breads. Now I can pick out my favorites based on what I look for (personally) in the perfect pumpkin bread. Thank you! 🙂 Also, I love Averie Cook’s pumpkin bread and will have to make a few of your top ratings to compare.
Thank you for doing all that work for us.
Nathalie
So you know I’ve been waiting for this post, ready with my can of pumpkin. I’ve made the Cookie and Kate and the Downeast Maine recipes before. After carefully reading this post, I attempted Smitten Kitchen’s recipe, mostly because of the entire can thing 😀 I cut the white sugar to 1 1/3 cup and added molasses, maple syrup, loads of cinnamon and nutmeg and an extra tbsp of flour. I’ve devoured 3 big slices fresh out of the oven slathered with salted butter and a pot of hot coffee. It’s to die for. THANK YOU for this Erika.
erika
Omg Nathalie you are THE BEST!!! That’s such great feedback on SK’s loaf! Even though I still have lbs of pumpkin bread left in my freezer, I want to try making your version of hers now…
Thank YOU Nathalie!! <3333
Saurs
Thirding or fourthing or wherever we’re at: Bake-Off is an obsession I didn’t know I wanted and I don’t want to lose. I really like this concept but I can only vaguely imagine the headache of organizing and baking up a storm for it, much less paying for the ingredients. You’re doing the lard’s and the butter’s and the oil’s own work. Thank you, and thank you to your taste-testers. And a double thanks for your honesty here in evaluating the recipes, particularly those of your peers. That’s kind of tough. It’s really helpful for home cooks, though, not only to have a compendium of Pumpkin and Cookie recipes, but as they start to develop their own recipes to see how slight variations in ingredients or preparation techniques result in vastly different taste and texture experiences.
erika
LOL doing the lard’s work…love it. Thanks so much for the awesome comment Saurs!! You’re so right–it is a TON of work, but it’s all worth it when I get comments like these, or people use the info to make their dream pumpkin bread/cookie etc. 🙂
Courtney
I. LOVE. THIS. Can you keep doing more of these “bake-off” posts pls because I’m really really really digging them and going to come back to this when I’m figuring out what pumpkin bread recipe to follow for the holidays this year! <3
erika
Yes of course!! I’m so glad you like them–I’m still trying to figure out the best/most helpful way to display all the info for readers. Let me know what you end up making!!!
Madeline Hall
wow thank you so much for doing this. seriously. I pretty much make a different recipe for pumpkin bread every time (oh and banana bread…want to do one of these again for that? lol) so this chart is a great reference! I’m not surprised tartine was #1, I think I need to try their recipe next!
erika
Awww you’re so welcome and thanks for the lovely comment Madeline!! HA you are reading my mind–I do want to do a banana bread bake off soon too!! Will keep you posted 🙂
Helen
Please do a banana bread bake off! I use Tyler Florence’s and Flour Bakery’s recipes but want to try Violet Bakery’s because it calls for so many bananas, which I think is essential.
erika
You’re reading my mind–a banana bread bake off is totally on my list!! Love all of your suggestions; consider them noted 🙂 Thanks Helen!!
Helen
YES! So glad to hear this.
Also, I made the Tartine pumpkin bread after reading your post and goodness gracious! It is now going to be my go to.
Kelsey @ Appeasing a Food Geek
I’m so obsessed with this bake-off, it’s insane. I love your figures! Right up my data-brain alley. Also, now I know which pumpkin breads to try! Happy #virtualpumpkinparty! xoxo
erika
Thanks so much Kelsey!! Happy #VPP <333