My Mother's Pumpkin Bread Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why does my pumpkin bread have no flavor? ›

Why does my pumpkin bread taste bland? Make sure to follow the recipe exactly. That means—don't leave out the salt, don't cut the amount of sugar, and use the specified amount of cinnamon. This is important because flour is what I like to call a “flavor thief”— it sucks the flavor out of ingredients.

Pumpkin bread can become dense if there is not enough hydration or wet ingredients in the recipe. Another cause is overcooking the bread which can cause it to dry out. Remember, it's always easy to keep cooking if it isn't done but impossible to take cooking time back.

You might think you could overcome the lack of flavor by adding more pumpkin purée to your recipe, but you'd be mistaken: By the time you've added enough purée to taste it, your baked good would have a soggy texture on account of all that moisture.

If your pumpkin spice bread is gummy or undercooked in the center, it's typically because it either 1) needed more time to bake in the oven or 2) the batter was too wet, which led the bread to collapse in on itself a bit (this happens if you measure ingredients by volume, rather than by weight: it's easy to ...

Ruth Reichl's Tip: Roast Your Pumpkin Purée

Not only does roasting deepen the flavor of the pumpkin, but it bakes off some of the moisture in the purée, ensuring a more custard-like pie with less risk of a soggy crust.

Long, slow fermentation allows the dough to reach its maximum flavor potential. If you forgot the salt, your dough will rise too quickly, and your bread will taste bland.

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

While bread flour is the best option, it can sometimes be used if you don't have bread flour. “Check the protein content,” advises Chef Jürgen, since it can vary from brand to brand, and an all-purpose flour that contains protein on the higher end of the range, 12 to 13 percent, will produce a better outcome.

It's important not to use too much baking soda in recipes, as it can result in a metallic, soapy flavor. It is much more powerful than baking powder – you only need about 1/4 teaspoon baking soda per cup of flour to leaven baked goods.

Even though your oven may say it's preheated to 350° F, tests have revealed that oven temperatures can be off by as much as 75° F in either direction! If your oven runs hot, your bread is likely to brown and bake up on the outside before the center has a chance to fully cook.

How to tell if pumpkin bread is done baking? ›

So, to know when pumpkin bread is done, look for the crack on the top of the bread, which is a tell-tale sign it's either done or close to being done. Then stick a skewer or toothpick into the center of the bread. If it comes out clean, it's ready to come out of the oven.

Overmixing can affect your dough by pushing in too much air and kickstarting extra gluten production, both things that can lead to gummy, dried out batter. Our Every Day Life notes that setting your oven too high and baking your bread too long could also be the source of dryness.

Sunflower flour does a funny thing where it turns green when baked… It's harmless, but not the most attractive food color. It doesn't affect the taste, so I'm totally fine with it.

Why does my pumpkin bread taste bland? Pumpkin bread commonly tastes bland if there aren't enough spices or the kosher salt was eliminated or reduced. Salt is critical to enhancing flavors. How do I prevent my pumpkin bread from getting soggy?

Baking temperature

Some ovens run hotter than its settings, some cooler. If the oven is too hot the loaf will be brown and crispy on the outside but doughy in the middle and may collapse as it cools. When bread is baked at too low a temperature it will not rise enough in the oven resulting in a dense and sunken loaf.

Salt adds flavor to bread. If none or too little is used in a recipe, the bread will lack the right flavor and taste "bland." If you reduce the amount of salt, try adding some dried herbs to increase the flavor. Too much yeast in bread will give bread an off-taste.

"Ironically, there's no actual pumpkin in pumpkin flavoring," says Anne Cundiff, a registered dietitian in Des Moines. "It's actually a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice and cloves." Pumpkin flavoring actually harkens back to the pilgrims, Cundiff says.

Q: My pumpkin pie doesn't taste much like pumpkin. Why not? First off, make sure you're using the right kind of pumpkin! Look for pumpkins labeled "sugar pumpkin" or "baking pumpkin." The pumpkins typically used for jack-o'-lanterns are stringy, watery, and bland.