Foodie Friday: Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread #Recipe

I’ve recently been finding a lot of my new recipes on Pinterest. (I’m very original, I know.) There are some super awesome foodie finds on that site and I highly recommend you follow me on Pinterest for loads of foodie goodness. (shamless plug)

Last weekend, I had my pal Tina over for lunch. Since I was cooking, I wanted to make something fall-inspired and let’s face it, impressive.

I decided to search Pinterest for a pumpkin recipe, since I had loads of organic pumpkin puree from Whole Foods. (It was on sale, yo!) Being that I’m in love with cheesecake, this recipe called my name.

I pinned this recipe on Pinterest. The original pin came from Nancy Creative and she originally got it from About.com, before making some adjustments. I looked at both recipes and liked Nancy’s the most so I went with her version.

This recipe makes two 8 x 4-inch loaves, so you can make one to eat now and one to save in the freezer for later. (Yeah right.)

Since I only have one loaf pan, I made a loaf and 6 large muffins. It worked out perfectly! I served up the loaf when Tina came over for lunch, and then I packed up the 5 muffins (I had to taste one to make sure it was yummy) for Tina to take home. That was my Ina Garten inspiration right there. She always gives her lunch guests something to take home and I just love that!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread Filling:

• 1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you want the filling to be)
• 1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 large egg (I used 2 small cage-free eggs)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pumpkin Bread:

• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
  1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 to 1 1/4 cup(s) pumpkin puree, canned or homemade
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2 large eggs (3 small cage-free eggs)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Cinnamon Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 to 2 1/2 Tablespoons half & half
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts for garnish

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 x 3-inch loaf pans, (or grease 1 loaf and put 6 paper baking cups in a cupcake pan). In a medium mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar, flour, egg, and vanilla; beat until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

In a large bowl, blend 1 2/3 cup flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg; set aside.

In another medium bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, canola oil, eggs and sugar; beat well. Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture just until combined. Fold in the chopped pecans or walnuts.

Pour half of the pumpkin bread batter evenly into the two prepared loaf pans (or cupcake pan) Spoon cream cheese mixture on top of the pumpkin batter layers in each loaf pan and then spoon or pour on the remaining pumpkin batter (if you don’t have enough pumpkin batter to cover the cream cheese layer entirely, that’s okay, because you’ll be swirling them together anyway).

Take a knife and stick straight down into the top pumpkin batter layer and middle cream cheese layer; swirl the knife around in these two layers, creating a marble effect; this will give the cream cheese filling a nice swirly shape as it bakes.

Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool bread in pans for 10 minutes; remove to a rack to cool completely.

While waiting for the bread to cool, mix your cinnamon glaze: combine powdered sugar and half & half, blending well; then add cinnamon and mix until smooth and creamy. Drizzle over completely cooled bread loaves and then sprinkle on nuts for garnish.

Enjoy!

That’s all, folks! Join me again next week for another installment of Foodie Friday!

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I look forward to reading your awesome foodie posts!

Happy Baking,

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Tagged as: pumpkin