This easy pumpkin bread recipe with orange and filled with chopped chocolate is a winner. Not too sweet, extremely moist and perfect for fall! Jump to the Pumpkin Bread Recipe or read on to see our tips for making it.
If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ve probably noticed our love for quick breads and muffins. There’s good reason for that — they are easy! We’ve shared zucchini bread, a ridiculously good banana bread recipe, extremely popular blueberry muffins, peach muffins … I could go on.
You see all of those recipes call on the “muffin method” — that means all you need to do is mix the dry ingredients together, mix the wet ingredients together then gently combine the two. Spoon the batter into your muffin tin or loaf pan and bake.
No fancy equipment, very few dishes to clean and only minutes in the kitchen. This orange scented pumpkin bread packed with chocolate is no different — it is absolutely a must make.
How To Make The Best Pumpkin Bread
We’ve already talked about how easy this is, but let me show you.
Step 1, Prepare the dry ingredients. Whisk flour with baking powder and warm spices — we love the combination of cinnamon, ginger and cloves.
Step 2, Flavor the sugar. Grab another bowl then use your fingers to rub orange zest and vanilla extract into the sugar. Sure you could just stir everything together, but by rubbing the zest into the sugar, you release the oils and make what could be considered the most fragrant sugar, ever.
Step 3, Prepare the wet ingredients. To the bowl with the sugar, add some melted butter, eggs and pumpkin puree — go for the pure pumpkin, not the stuff with spices already added. You can also use homemade pumpkin puree, here’s our recipe for making it.
Step 4, Make the batter. Now you have a bowl full of dry ingredients and one with the wet ingredients. It’s time to combine them.
How to Combine the Wet and Dry Ingredients
Here’s where we need to be delicate. Grab a rubber spatula and gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet. We only want to mix until combined — any more than that and we risk over mixing which means heavy pumpkin bread — no good!
As a final step, we add chocolate chunks — just mix them in with a few swipes of your spatula. Then after spooning the batter into the loaf pan, we add an extra handful of chocolate on top. You probably should too!
Once the pumpkin loaf has baked, we leave it in the pan for about 15 minutes before transferring it to a cooling rack. Once the loaf has cooled, find some pumpkin loving friends and dig in. Enjoy!
More Pumpkin Recipes
- Easy Pumpkin Mac and Cheese — How to make extra creamy pumpkin mac and cheese in under 1 hour. The perfect Fall dinner!
- Homemade Pumpkin Pancakes — We love these pumpkin pancakes: not too sweet with a hint of spice.
- Homemade (and easy) Pumpkin Pie — How to make classic, unfussy pumpkin pie from scratch. This is our favorite way to make pumpkin pie. It’s easy, too!
- Pumpkin Scones — How to make the best spiced pumpkin scones inspired by Starbucks.
- Seriously Good Pumpkin Cupcakes — These moist spiced pumpkin cupcakes are hard to beat.
Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte — How to make the best pumpkin spice latte at home with pumpkin puree, coffee, milk, and fall spices. Better than store-bought!
Chocolate Orange Pumpkin Bread
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This easy pumpkin bread scented with orange and filled with chopped chocolate is a winner. Use homemade pumpkin puree or canned puree for these cupcakes. When buying canned pumpkin, make sure you buy the can with “pure pumpkin” on the label and not one that says “pie mix” or that already has spices mixed in. For the chocolate, we love using a dark chocolate, but milk or white chocolate would also be delicious.
You Will Need
8 tablespoons (115 grams or 1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 scant cup (215 grams) pure pumpkin, see our homemade pumpkin puree recipe
3 ounces (85 grams) chocolate, roughly chopped or chocolate chips (about 1/2 cup)
Directions
1Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2-inch by 4 1/2-inch loaf pan. You can also line the bottom and two sides with parchment paper. If you leave an inch or two hanging over two sides, it makes for easy removal after baking.
2In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves to combine.
3In a large bowl, rub the sugar, orange zest, and vanilla together until fragrant then add the butter and whisk to combine. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking well after each egg. Stir in the pumpkin.
4Switch to a spatula or large spoon then fold the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture in two parts, folding just until combined. Be careful not to over mix the batter. Fold in most of the chocolate, leaving about a tablespoon to scatter on top.
5Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan, smooth the top then scatter reserved chocolate on top. Bake until the loaf is golden brown, pulls slightly away from the edges of the pan, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs, 55 to 75 minutes.
6Cool the loaf in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan and transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely. Store loaf loosely covered at room temperature 2 to 3 days or wrap well and store in the refrigerator up to a week.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Since it’s just the two of us, we store in the refrigerator then when we want a slice we’ll give it a couple minutes in our toaster oven to warm up.
- Nutrition Facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values.
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
Incredible! Made this for the first time last night and it was absolutely delicious. The only thing I changed was reduce the sugar by half. Will definitely be making it again!
2nd recipe I’ve made from your page and instant hit again! Can’t wait to try some more of your recipes!
I love love love this bread. It is the best. I have made this for my coworkers and they loved it too. My husband does not like pumpkin but he loves this bread.He has raved about this bread to his workers so I made it for them as well and everyone that tried it loved it.
Love this site! Can I replace the butter with oil? Thanks
Hi Dina, I bet that you can, but we have never tested it ourselves. You might need slightly less oil that butter in this recipe.
This recipe is one of THE best things I have ever baked, and I bake a lot. The Creamsicle aroma of the orange zest and sugar is delightful, the texture of the baked loaf is amazing, and it keeps well for a few days. I cannot recommend this recipe more enthusiastically- Go bake! Make 2! Enjoy 🙂
The only site where i get no fail recepies
This recipe is so amazing, I have made it for 2 or 3 falls/Christmases in a row now. People go nuts for it at work. I have mailed loaves as holiday gifts. This is such a standout, excellent recipe.