Picked With Passion

Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread that’s made with good for you ingredients but still tastes indulgent, delicious, and has all the pumpkin flavor you want this time of year.

It took me quite a long time to come around to pumpkin. I was never much of a pumpkin pie fan and even though I like pumpkin more than I ever have, I am still not a die hard pumpkin spice fan. However one major exception to that is pumpkin bread. That I can get behind every time and it’s one of my favorite things to eat this time of year. I love the notes of cinnamon and nutmeg and the subtle pumpkin flavor that comes through in every bite. However my bakery obsession definitely packs in the calories, so lately I have been experimenting with making my own lighter version at home.

I started with one of my favorite healthy banana bread recipes since in my opinion, a good banana bread and good pumpkin bread are not too far apart. This bread uses a combination of canned pumpkin, banana, and applesauce for sweetness and moisture. It’s a really moist, dense bread, which I love. It also needs a touch of honey and maple syrup so it sweet enough and lots of pumpkin pie spice to get all the cinnamon and nutmeg flavor you expect in a pumpkin treat. This is all combined with white whole wheat flour and a good smattering of chocolate chips since pumpkin and chocolate is always a good thing. And let me tell you, the finished bread, it so delicious. We ate the whole loaf in just a couple of days.

Here are some things to keep in mind when making this Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread:

• When buying canned pumpkin, make sure to buy plain canned pumpkin without any added sweeteners or spices. It should just be pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie filling. Canned or homemade squash puree also works.
• I like to add a banana and applesauce since it adds natural sweetness to the bread. You could replace this with extra pumpkin if you don’t want to use banana or applesauce. You will need about 1/2 cup of extra pumpkn puree.
• If you don’t like pumpkin pie spice, you can just use cinnamon instead. This is perfect for people who don’t like nutmeg or cloves, which are usually a part of pumpkin pie spice blends.
• This recipe works great for muffins as well, just cut the cooking time down since muffins will cook a lot more quickly than bread.
• Chocolate and pumpkin is one of my favorite combinations so I always add chocolate chips. You can leave these out if you want. It will reduce the calories by about 35 calories and points to 5 SP per serving.

Looking for more healthy pumpkin recipes?

Here are some of the products I used in this recipe:

• I like to use white whole wheat flour for baking since it is a healthier, less processed option to all purpose flour but has the same taste in recipes and bakes in the same way.
• If you are looking at this recipe and it’s a time of year it’s hard to find pumpkin puree, look online, where you can purchase it year round and usually at a very competitive price.