Chocolate Pumpkin Bread Recipe
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This chocolate pumpkin bread is not only perfect for fall, it’s delicious and filling too. Plus, you get both the benefits of real pumpkin and whole grains!
Sweet bread is always a delicious option for breakfast or dessert. Serve with a cup of coffee or tea, and you have a beautiful moment of delicious meditation. Just don’t leave behind all those delicious moist crumbs. You’ll want to enjoy every last bit of this!
What Spices Are In Chocolate Pumpkin Bread?
While many recipes call for pumpkin spice (a.k.a pumpkin pie spice), this recipe simplifies the flavor profile a bit by bringing in just two, tasty spices. For this recipe, you’ll just need cinnamon and nutmeg.
If you want to add more spices, you can also try adding a ¼ teaspoon ground cloves and a ¼ teaspoon ground ginger. But the recipe does not call for them.
Why Is My Pumpkin Bread Dry?
Any sweet bread that is too dry typically doesn’t end up that way on accident. Here are some things to double-check to make sure this doesn’t happen.
- Measure your flour accurately. If you tend to scoop extra flour out of the bag, or fail to level it off in the measuring cup, you could be adding too much flour that will make your bread dry.
- Check your oven temperature. Every oven bakes differently. But if yours bakes on the higher side, it can dry things out pretty quickly. A simple oven thermomenter that sits in the oven should be able to give you an accurate read.
- Adjust the oil and pumpkin. If you make this recipe and feel that it is still too dry (it shouldn’t be), you can always add more pumpkin or oil to the batter the next time you make it. A ¼ to a ½ cup more of pumpkin should do the trick, and/or another ¼ cup of oil.
Healthy Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
What makes this recipe a more nutritious option? Using clean, whole-food ingredients always makes things healthier. In this particular recipe, these ingredients make things healthier:
- Whole Wheat Flour – Any whole grain flour will always be a healthier choice than white, processed flour. Why? Because whole grains convert to sugar in the body much slower than white flour. So your body doesn’t get the same “sugar jolt” that it will get from white flour.
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – This outdoes sweetened cocoa powder by leaps and bounds simply because you get all the nutritious benefits of cocoa without any of the added, processed sugar.
- Chocolate Chips – Yes, it’s sweetened chocolate. But they type of chocolate chips you use here can make a noticeable difference. There are chocolate chips on the market that are stevia sweetened and are made of dark chocolate. This makes them pretty healthy compared to regular chocolate chips! Lily’s is my favorite brand. But there are others on the market as well. (Not paid to promote Lily’s. It’s just what I use.)
- Pumpkin Puree – As long as it’s pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), pumpkin is a nutrition powerhouse! It’s a superfood for good reason. So don’t be shy with eating pumpkin!
- Granular Sweetener – The type you choose will make a difference. Sure, you could use regular, processed, white sugar. But it will do a number on your body. Better choices are Sucanat, coconut sugar, or monk fruit. Yes, they are still sweeteners. But they are far easier on the body than the processed stuff. So choose wisely.
- Molasses – If you use blackstrap molasses, you are getting a nice dose of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals!
Ingredients In Healthy Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
Whole wheat flour – Use the regular variety. Do not use whole wheat pastry flour for this.
Unsweetened cocoa powder – Make sure there is no added sugar. You can use cacao powder instead if you wish.
Baking powder – Make sure it’s on the newer side or it won’t be as effective.
Salt – I used pink Himalayan salt, but use whatever you normally bake or cook with.
Ground cinnamon – No added sugar here. Just the cinnamon.
Ground nutmeg – You can grate this fresh if you prefer.
Chocolate chips – I use the 365 sugar-free dark chocolate chips from Whole Foods. Lily’s and Enjoy Life are also good brands.
Pumpkin puree – if canned, make sure it’s not pumpkin pie filling.
Granular sweetener – I used brown xylitol for this to avoid spikes in my blood sugar. But it’s not a clean sweetener. Use whatever you are comfortable using. I’ve made this with coconut sugar and it turns out great!
Molasses – Blackstrap molasses is best here if you can get it.
Large eggs – These work best if used at room temperature.
Pure vanilla extract – Don’t use vanilla flavoring.
How To Make Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
Preheat oven to 350° degrees F. and line a standard loaf pan with parchment paper.
Spray the parchment with oil.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, sweetener, cinnamon, nutmeg, and 1 cup of chocolate chips (all your dry ingredients). Reserve the last ¼ cup chocolate chips for topping your bread.
Next, add the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl.
Stir everything together. It will feel dry at first, but keep mixing. It will become a proper dough once stirred enough.
Pour the batter into the oiled loaf pan. Smooth it out and press it evenly in the pan so the top is level.
Sprinkle the leftover ¼ cup chocolate chips over the top of the dough. Bake for 40 minutes.
Let the bread cool on a counter, on a wire rack (cooling rack).
Once cooled, slice and serve.
How To Store Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
This will keep in the fridge for up to 4 or 5 days.
How To Freeze Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
This one is so-so in the freezer. It will obviously freeze, as will any food. But the freezer does tend to dry it out a bit. So make very sure you pack it super well. Perhaps wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and then put it into an airtight container with a tight-fitting lid.
Recipe Supplies
For this recipe, you’ll want a standard bread loaf pan, parchment paper, and a mixing bowl. Click on any of the images to be taken to that product on Amazon. (Affiliate links)
More Healthy Sweet Bread Recipes
- Persimmon Bread
- Cinnamon Bread
- Lemon Blueberry Bread
- Snickerdoodle Pumpkin Bread
- Apple Bread
- Oat Flour Banana Bread
- Raspberry Banana Bread
- Snickerdoodle Pumpkin Bread
Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf Recipe Card + Video
Adapted from: Carrots And Cake
Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
CLICK TO WATCH THIS RECIPE IN ACTION!
Equipment
- 1 Standard Loaf Pan
Ingredients
- 1 cups whole wheat flour
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1¼ cup chocolate chips (divided – I used Lily's or Enjoy Life)
- 1 cup pumpkin puree (if canned, make sure it's not pumpkin pie filling)
- ¾ cup granular sweetener
- 1 tbsp. molasses
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350° degrees F. and line a standard loaf pan with parchment paper.
- Spray the parchment with oil.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together your flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, sweetener, cinnamon, nutmeg, and 1 cup of chocolate chips (all your dry ingredients). Reserve the last ¼ cup chocolate chips for topping your bread.
- Next, add the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl.
- Stir everything together. It will feel dry at first, but keep mixing. It will become a proper dough once stirred enough.
- Pour the batter into the oiled loaf pan. Smooth it out and press it evenly in the pan so the top is level.
- Sprinkle the leftover ¼ cup chocolate chips over the top of the dough. Bake for 40 minutes.
- Cool the loaf on a wire cooling rack.
- Once cooled, slice and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe from the Gracious Pantry® archives, originally posted on 10/12/2010.
I'm Tiffany, a writer for MSN and the AP Newswire, a cookbook author, digital publisher, food lover, and mom. I create healthy, clean eating recipes for everyday living.
Looks WONDERFUL!!!!!
I do read Carrots ‘N’ Cake, (Tina and I are Boston blog buddies,) and love your adaption of her chocolate pumpkin loaf!
Beautiful loaf and like the thin slices. Nice dark color for the loaf. Love to add pumpkin in my loaves.
Thanks for compliments everyone! I hope you enjoy the recipe!
The Clean Eating Bakery is a FANTASTIC idea!
I think I’m going to bake this tomorrow…mmmmmm, can’t wait 😉
Ma.Risa – I thought so too. Oh the possibilities…. lol Enjoy the recipe!
Wowee! I could go a slice of this right now 🙂
Anna – You would love it!
Made this last night – it’s almost gone! What a wonderful flavor. The house smells spectacular. Hubby and son were nearly waiting at the oven door for this to come out. Thanks!
Margaret – Yay! So happy you enjoyed it!
just found your blog yesterday and i’m so happy i did! i didn’t have a loaf pan so i made these into muffins…yummers! they were fantastic! thank you for the great recipes, i can’t wait to try more of them.
Heather – Fantastic! Improvisation is always a good thing in the kitchen!
Looks so yummy! Any idea what flour I could sub for WW? At least for part of the flour? Brown Rice? Quinoa Flour?
Jayme – I would stick with brown rice flour. A mix is probably better than substituting outright, unless you need to to avoid the gluten.
Just wanted to let Tiffany’s readers know that this recipe is UNBELIEVABLE! WOW. Probably the best chocolate muffins I’ve ever had. Yeah, I made the recipe in the form of muffins and they turned out PERFECT! Hubby and daughter couldn’t believe it. 😀
Just FYI, mini muffins only baked for about 15 minutes. Regular-sized muffins baked for about 30.
Wendy – Thank you so much for sharing that! Muffins are ALWAYS good! (Funny how the shape of something seems to make it taste better, isn’t it? lol)
Hi tiff,
Do you think instead of canned pumpkin if would be the same to bill and then used a blender to puree half of a fresh pumpkin?
I live in New and they dont sell pumpkin puree because pumpkin pie is unheard of, but you can get copious amounts of pumpkin fresh!
Katie – Yes! If you cook the pumpkin and blend until smooth, it’s the same thing as the canned version.
LJ – Hahaha!!! Glad you liked it!
I made this for company last night. It was great! The melty chips added so much, and it wasn’t too sweet – just right with a cup of coffee. Great job!
Cec – Fantastic! Glad you enjoyed it!
I’m confused. This recipe doesn’t call for yeast…
Awesome!
But just to be sure you know, brown sugar isn’t clean. They sound delish though!
Let it cool enough to handle it. Then take it out of the pan.
AH-MAZING!!! Another really tasty recipe. Thanks so much
My pleasure!
This is a great loaf!!!!!!!!!!!! I have made it 3 times already…truly a keeper.
I did substitute the molasses with brown sugar–it worked fine…will be making this many more times….really gets the want for chocolate and you feel it is better for you too!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m wondering….can you buy that kind of chocolate chips at like Walmart?….that may or may not be a dumb question. haha – I just discovered your website, and I can’t wait to try all these clean recipes! 🙂
Courtney – Unfortunately, I seriously doubt it. I get mine at Whole Foods. They aren’t cheap either. A little over $4 a bag. But if you don’t use them very often, it’s not so bad.
Does that work out to be a little less than 1 cup of pumpkin?
Jayme – It’s half of a 15 oz. can. So ya, somewhere in that range.
Do you use baking powder or baking soda? The recipe mentions powder in the ingredient list and soda in the instructions.
Laura – Just updated. Thanks for catching that!