Learn how to make the best pumpkin cranberry bread with this easy recipe. This homemade pumpkin loaf cake is very moist and flavoured with warm fall spices, including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, but you can also use your favourite pumpkin spice mix or apple pie spices. This makes a great breakfast or snack!
I have been on the quest for the perfect pumpkin cranberry bread for a while. So many tests went into this recipe, even though, in the end, the recipe is very easy, straightforward, and downright simple. This moist pumpkin bread incorporates as much pumpkin as possible, without compromising the baking time and the texture/crumb of the final loaf! I've also written out what you can do differently next time you make a pumpkin bread to improve your loaf cakes!
If you love to bake with pumpkin, order your copy of the e-book All About Pumpkin so you can celebrate this star ingredient!
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Ingredients
- flour—I tested this recipe with bleached all-purpose flour
- leavening agents—you will need both chemical leavening agents, baking powder and baking soda for this recipe. Please read about baking soda versus baking powder if you aren't sure the difference!
- spices—pumpkin pie spice mix works great here or a combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves
- salt: preferably Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, but if you are using regular table salt, halve the amount so the cake isn't too salty.
- oil—using canola oil enhances the vegetal flavour of the pumpkin
- sugar—you can use either granulated sugar or brown sugar. Brown sugar will give the pumpkin bread more flavour
- eggs, specifically large eggs
- pure vanilla extract, either homemade or store-bought
- pumpkin purée, either canned or strained homemade pumpkin purée to remove excess water. Read about homemade pumpkin purée if you are unsure about how to remove the water and why
- cranberries—I prefer to bake this pumpkin cake with dried cranberries
Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.
Substitutions and Variations
- Sugar: I've baked this recipe with all granulated sugar and a combination of light brown sugar and granulated sugar. Both work. If you are using a liquid sugar, like maple syrup, your batter might be wetter so you might have to either use less: replace only a portion of the sugar with maple syrup to avoid adding too much liquid to the recipe and throwing off the texture, or add a little more flour (this may require additional tests). If you want to try this recipe with honey, be careful: honey will lead to a darker quick bread and more browning
- Oil: replace the 125 mL (½ cup) of canola oil in the recipe with the same volume of another oil (perhaps a light-tasting olive oil or sunflower oil!) or you could replace the oil with the same amount or up to 170 mL (⅔ cup) of unsalted butter, melted and cooled before incorporating in the recipe. You would consider adding a little more butter than oil to the recipe because butter is only 80 % fat, whereas vegetable oils are 100 % fat. So to keep the amount of fat constant, you'd need slightly more butter than oil.
- Cranberries: use dried cranberries, not fresh or frozen because the latter may lead to gummy areas around the fruit from the excess moisture. Not the end of the world, but not ideal. You can replace them with raisins or chocolate chips (same volume), or even chopped nuts like walnuts or pecans!
How to Make Pumpkin Bread with Cranberries
Step 1: Whisk the dry ingredients in a medium bowl (image 1) and whisk the wet ingredients in a separate large bowl (image 2). I like to use a Danish dough whisk but a balloon whisk will also work.
Step 2: Pour the dry ingredients over the wet ingredients (image 3) and stir them until just incorporated (image 4). Add the flour-coated dried cranberries to the pumpkin cake batter (image 5) and fold them in.
Tip: Don't overmix the cake batter because it may create a dry cake that may have bigger bubbles. Undermix the mixture of dry and wet ingredients before adding the cranberries. When you stir in the cranberries, you will finish mixing the batter!
Step 3: Transfer the pumpkin cranberry cake batter to a buttered and floured loaf pan lined with parchment paper on the bottom (image 6). Bake until the edges begin to pull away from the sides and a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean (try not to poke it through a cranberry which could skew the test!). Cool the cake 10–20 minutes to firm up before transferring onto a wire rack to completely before cutting and serving (image 7). It takes about 3 hours for pumpkin loaf cake to cool down completely.
Top Baking Tip
Be sure to toss fruit in flour to coat them, in this case, dried cranberries. The flour coating will anchor the cranberries in the batter and prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake.
You can strain off any extra flour by sifting the flour-coated cranberries in a fine-mesh sieve, which will remove any excess.
Pumpkin Cranberry Cake FAQs
By using oil, we can more easily utilize the muffin mixing method (also called the two bowl method) so that we don't have to use an electric mixer. We can mix the batter by hand. Oil also creates a more moist and tender loaf cake because butter is solid at room temperature, which can give the allusion of a dryer texture. If you prefer to use butter, you can melt it to incorporate into the cake batter, or switch mixing methods to the creaming method with an electric mixer.
Feel free to use homemade pumpkin purée (or even squash purée!). Make sure to strain it through cheesecloth to remove excess moisture before baking with it. Some bakers like to dry it on paper towel but I find this a little more challenging to do (without getting paper in the purée). You could also cook it down to boil off the water and concentrate the flavour.
Make sure to toss cranberries in a small amount of flour so that they are completely coated. Sift the excess off, then fold them into the cake batter. The flour will anchor the berries in the cake batter so that they don't sink to the bottom of the cake.
Don't forget to save the seeds if you make your own pumpkin purée to bake with so that you can snack on toasted pumpkin seeds later. As for the canned pumpkin, my brands of choice are E.D. Smith in Canada and Libby's in the US. Both of these work well in this recipe and the canned pumpkin isn't watery or wet, which is perfect for making this recipe.
Other Pumpkin Bread Recipes
For other versions of pumpkin bread, try these:
- Classic pumpkin loaf cake, plain and simple
- Maple pumpkin bread
- Whole wheat pumpkin bread with cream cheese frosting
- Healthier pumpkin bread, made without eggs or dairy so it's dairy-free and vegan-friendly!
If you tried this recipe for the best cranberry pumpkin bread (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!
📖 Recipe
Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
Ingredients
- 250 grams bleached all-purpose flour
- 5 mL baking powder
- 5 mL baking soda
- 5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
- 5 mL ground cinnamon
- 2.5 mL ground ginger
- 1.25 mL ground nutmeg
- 0.625 mL ground cloves
- 375 mL pumpkin purée or strained homemade pumpkin purée
- 125 mL canola oil
- 150 grams granulated sugar
- 100 grams light brown sugar
- 2 large egg(s)
- 5 mL pure vanilla extract
- 100 grams dried cranberries tossed in 5 mL (1 tsp) of flour to coat the berries
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175 °C). Butter and flour a 1-pound loaf pan, either a 9x5-inch (23x12.5x7.5 cm) loaf pan (like this Nordic Ware pan on Amazon) or for a taller loaf, use an 8.5x4.5-inch (21.5x11.5x7 cm) loaf pan (like this Oxo pan on Amazon). Line the bottom with a rectangle of parchment. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin purée, oil, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
- Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients. Stir the ingredients just to combine them. Don't over mix. Fold in the flour-coated dried cranberries.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth it out. Bang the pan on the counter to help remove any air pockets.
- Bake the pumpkin cake until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. This takes about 1 hour 15 minutes. Keep checking it every so often after an hour of baking.
- Place the pan of baked pumpkin bread on a cooling rack and let it cool for 15 minutes before unmolding it on the rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Most canned pumpkin purées are pretty dry, but some are watery. To be sure you aren't adding excess liquid to this pumpkin cake recipe, strain the pumpkin before measuring it. To do so:
- Set a strainer over a deep bowl and line it with a couple layers of cheesecloth.
- Place the pumpkin in the lined strainer and let drain for at least 30 minutes.
- Occasionally, give the pumpkin a stir, a press, or a squeeze to help remove any excess liquid.
- Once the pumpkin is thicker and less watery, you are ready to measure out the cup for this recipe.
- If you are using defrosted pumpkin purée, you may notice the water will separate upon defrosting. Again, this is a good reason to strain it before using.
- The baking times suggested are for a cake baked in a light coloured 9x5 inch loaf pan like this one on Amazon made by Nordic Ware. I have also tested the recipe in the OXO loaf pan from Amazon with similar results, yielding a taller loaf cake.
Lisa says
Made exactly as directed and the results were outstanding... now would love to make into muffins for the grandchildren. Do you suggest any changes?
Thank you for a great,easy recipe!