Cream Cheese Pumpkin Bread

Happy November! I hope you all had a fun and festive weekend!

We spent our Halloween passing out candy to tons of tiny, adorable trick-or-treaters, including one little girl dressed as Elsa who said to me, "You know I don't like Skittles, right?" It was quite entertaining, even sans my usual pumpkin beer.

We ran out of candy so we were forced to dip into our own stash... you know, the pile of your favorites that you keep for yourself? Not going to lie, I ran out the next day and got more on sale... #notsorry

Speaking of food, I made this bread a few weeks ago when we had family visiting and it was such a hit that I wanted to share it with y'all today! I haven't done a whole lot of baking or cooking since the beginning of my pregnancy, since I was pretty turned off by most foods, so I'm glad to finally get back into it.

This recipe easily made a huge loaf of bread and about 20 muffins. I probably could have made 3 huge loaves, which means it's perfect if you're making something for a holiday bake sale or mini loaves to pass out to neighbors!

Cream Cheese Pumpkin Bread
Recipe adapted from Your Cup of Cake

Pumpkin Bread Ingredients
1 can of pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2/3 cup milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cup sugar
3 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp.pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Cream Cheese Filling Ingredients
16 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tbsp. milk

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and grease a loaf pan or set up liners in your cupcake tin.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, eggs, vegetable oil, applesauce, milk, vanilla extract and sugar. (I used my stand mixer for this step because it was easy, but not necessary if you don't have one!)

In another bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice together.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix just until combined. Then stir in your chocolate chips.

To make the cream cheese filling, beat the cream cheese, sugar, egg and milk together until smooth. Top with some leftover mini chocolate chips.

For Bread: Pour a little bit of batter into the loaf pan (not as much as I did) and spoon the cream cheese mixture on top. I found it easier to do this just once, top with more of the batter, and use a butter knife to swirl the cream cheese around.  Bake for 60-80 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

For muffins: Fill each muffin tin 1/3 full, add some cream cheese filling, and then top with another spoonful of pumpkin batter. Swirl with toothpick or knife then top with mini chocolate chips. Bake for 14-18 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

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It's so easy and comes out really moist and delicious! You don't even need butter or anything on this bread when you eat it. Definitely adding this to my list of favorite pumpkin recipes!

What are some of your go-to pumpkin recipes this Fall?! I'm always up for trying new ones!