Incredibly Moist Pumpkin Bread - The Highest Rated Quick Bread Recipe For Fall (2024)

FAQs

What gives quick breads moisture? ›

Eggs also add moisture, color, and flavor to the batter. Liquids moisten the batter, activate gluten in the flour, and help to dissolve the sugars. Liquids include milk, buttermilk, sour cream, juice, or fruit purees.

There are a number of reasons your pumpkin bread came out dry. It's possible the particular flour you used was extra “thirsty” for liquid. Try cutting the amount of flour, or adding more milk. It's also possible your oven was too hot, or you baked the pumpkin bread for too long.

Pumpkin Bread from Cake Mix FAQ

When you add too much pumpkin purée, the center won't bake.

Why is My Pumpkin Bread So Dense? 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.

Fats keep your bread moist. If your loaf was too dry, try adding a tablespoon or two more oil next time you make it. Likewise, water does more than hydrate your dough. It helps yeast do its thing, activates gluten and determines the volume of your loaf—all crucial for the right results.

Honey adds both sweetness and moisture to breads such as challah. Be sure to use a pasteurized honey, as wild honeys contain antibacterial properties that can kill yeast. Store honey at room temperature, out of direct sunlight. Honey would makes everything better, but especially sourdough.

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 ...

When the toothpick comes out clean, the bread is done. If not, bake 5-10 minutes longer and recheck. PRO-Tip: Do not pull the loaves out without doing a toothpick check. If you remove the loaf too early, the middle will be raw.

The natural response to seeing a sunken-in loaf come out of the oven is to assume you didn't fill the pan enough. But actually, the opposite is true: You probably filled it too much. According to Fine Cooking, this is the most common reason why quick breads (like pumpkin bread) collapse while baking.

Cook It on the Stove

Briefly cooking your canned pumpkin purée on the stove can help improve both the flavor and texture. This method helps reduce excess moisture, which gives the pumpkin a superior texture. It also releases the natural pumpkin flavor and helps reduce the metallic taste from the can.

What happens if you use too much baking soda in pumpkin bread? ›

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.

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.

All it takes is a small amount of dough enhancer per loaf to create a much lighter and fluffier result. Using a dough enhancer like Vital Wheat Gluten works to improve the texture and elasticity of the dough and elongate the strands of gluten. Doing so allows more room for the gas in the dough to develop and rise.

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 easy to think of bread as being mostly flour and water, but other ingredients also add to its structure. For example, fats like butter or oil can help keep moisture in, while sugars will help to caramelize on the outside and create a golden crust.

Bread storage takeaways

Store airtight with the two cut halves facing each other and pressed together. Wrapping bread to retain moisture keeps it soft, though it robs crusty artisan bread of its crispy crust. Wrapping in plastic (or foil) rather than cloth keeps bread soft longer.

Too much baking powder or baking soda can make a quick bread dry and crumbly. But, also the bread can have a bitter aftertaste. If too much leavening is added the batter can over rise and then the bread will “fall.” Too little leavening produces bread with a heavy, gummy texture.