This Ginger Pumpkin Bread tastes of fall. In this simple quick bread recipe, pumpkin and ginger are the stars. The maple brown butter icing isn’t too shabby either. Yields 1 loaf in a little over an hour.
Well it’s officially fall.
Not just because it’s after September 21st, or because we had our first fire in our fireplace at our new house. And not only because I’ve made two, count’em TWO recipes now with brown butter. But mostly because I officially made pumpkin bread. Err pumpkin bread that’s like cake. AND covered in a maple brown butter icing, it really doesn’t get much fall-er than that.
So it’s safe to say I’m excited about fall. I’m always get excited to see the weather change. Living in Michigan does that to a girl. For example; just when you get sick of wearing shorts, tank tops and sweating, it’s fall. And when you’re sick of jeans, boots and the snow, it’s finally spring and so on.
You get all the seasons and celebrate each one with equal enthusiasm.
To Make This Ginger Pumpkin Bread You Will Need:
- unbleached all-purpose flour
- baking powder
- ground ginger
- kosher salt
- pumpkin puree
- eggs
- (melted) butter
- granulated sugar
- light brown sugar
TO Make the Maple Brown Butter Icing You Will Need:
- unsalted butter
- maple syrup
- powdered sugar
- vanilla
Start by throwing the 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt into a medium bowl. Stir and set it off to the side for a moment.
In a separate mixing bowl combine; 1 cup pumpkin, 3 eggs, 6 tablespoons melted unsalted butter (that has cooled and is not hot) and 1/2 cup each of granulated and light brown sugar.
Whisk until smooth and velvety.
Pour the pumpkin mixture into the dry ingredients.
Stir just until combined.
Try not to over mix.
Grease a loaf pan, if using butter, dust with a little flour and tap out any excess. I must confess, I do love the nonstick spray that has flour in it. It’s pretty magical.
Spoon the pumpkin bread batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth out the top with a spatula.
Bake on the middle rack in your preheated 375° oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean with only a few crumbs attached.
Allow the ginger pumpkin bread to cool in the pan for about 10-15 minutes, before carefully turning it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
When the bread has cooled and is only a touch warm, I would get going on making the icing. It moves fast, so have all your ingredients ready, measured and on stand-by.
Brown 2 tablespoons of butter in a 9 or 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, kill the heat and whisk in the maple syrup, it should start bubbling like crazy. Keep your cool, just whisk until the bubbles become less, um fierce. Add in 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup powdered sugar, whisk out any lumps and until the icing is thick yet pourable. If it becomes too thick, you can thin out with a little milk. Lastly add a splash of vanilla.
While the icing is warm, drizzle it haphazardly over the bread, making sure to get the icing all over the top and into any nooks and crannies. I make mine thicker (by being heavy handed with the powdered sugar) so it’s thick. Totally up to you!
Slice.
Serve.
Devour.
This ginger pumpkin bread is a delightful pumpkin-y and I mean P-U-M-P-K-I-N-Y cake like bread. The pumpkin is definitely a prominent flavor and the ginger is a subtle background flavor. But I have to tell ya, the icing really ties it all together.
I am now thinking of putting this maple brown butter icing on anything and everything I can get my mitts on; cupcakes, pancakes, toast… a SPOON.
Nothing is off limits.
Delicious until the last bite.
Enjoy! And if you give this Ginger Pumpkin Bread recipe a try, let me know! Snap a photo and tag me on twitter or instagram!
Ginger Pumpkin Bread with Maple Brown Butter Icing
Ingredients
FOR THE BREAD:
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light-brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 3 large eggs
FOR THE GLAZE:
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup real maple syrup
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup powdered sugar, more or less if needed
- 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- heavy cream, only if need to thin out icing
- 1 pinch kosher salt
Instructions
MAKE THE GINGER PUMPKIN BREAD:
- Preheat oven to 375°.
- Grease a 8x5 loaf pan; either lightly butter or spray with baking spray and then dust wit flour (tap out any excess flour and discard), set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt.
- Then in a large bowl, whisk together sugars, pumpkin, melted (cooled) butter, and eggs. Pour this into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
- Spoon batter into the prepared pan. Bake on the middle rack for 40-45 minutes or until a cake tester is inserted into the center and comes out clean with only a few crumbs attached.
- Let cool 10 minutes before carefully removing and transferring the ginger bread to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Once cool, drizzle with the maple brown butter icing.
MAKE THE MAPLE BROWN BUTTER ICING:
- Heat the butter in a small skillet over medium heat until golden brown in color.
- Turn off the heat and add in the maple syrup, whisking constantly until the bubble subside.
- Gradually add and whisk in the powdered sugar until you reach the desired consistency.
- If too thick, you can thin out with milk.
- Lastly add a pinch of kosher salt and a splash of vanilla.
- Drizzle warm icing over cooled cake. Slice and serve!
Buy the Cookbook: Simply Scratch : 120 Wholesome Homemade Recipes Made Easy Now available on Amazon »
THANK YOU in advance for your support!
the icing sounds like a dream come true and I love how tall and high the cake got – what a gorgeous loaf!
Love the flavours of this & that maple brown butter icing? Perfection!
My whole family is from Michigan Laurie! I was the only one born in PA. I love visiting. 🙂 I’m embracing the weather getting cooler too. I love having an excuse to wear my scarves again! This frosting looks DIVINE. And I love how moist it looks! I haven’t made pumpkin bread in a couple years… way too long in my book!!
Ooooooh, that icing!
This sounds so tasty! Awesome idea!
This looks fabulous. And yes, I want a hardened-icing puddle. YUM!
Gorgeous! Maple and pumpkin?! Sounds like a keeper to me!
Weather changes are always something to look forward to and fall in particular with all the warm spicy baked goods that fill your house with amazing smells! Your gingery pumpkin bread looks awesome – LOVE all the ginger that goes in there! And oh.my.gosh all over your icing…yum! 🙂
Aaaaah this is literally my favorite fall breakfast. And I ALWAYS want icing puddles!!
Wow, love the step by step pictures, they look amazing! Do you get someone to help you take them?! That pumpkin bread doesn’t look too shabby either!
wow, i’m literally drooling at the sight of this. i love that browned butter icing…pick me to lick the puddles!!
It’s so funny what we all consider the change in seasons 😉 Love this!
This bread certainly does scream fall!! It looks so good and I love the icing!
Love these flavors, Laurie. And the glaze – there are no words!
This definitely screams fall! And that glaze is to die for. I seriously want to slather that icing on everything!
I’m in love I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!
You got to be kidding! I’m typing as I run out the door to get ingredients to make this. If it was just pumpkin bread I’d walk, but anything maple I run for!
Look at that color!! I just want to lick up that icing.
I can’t believe the colors of this bread! So gorgeous! And the glaze – heaven!!
Love the flavor combination, especially that maple brown butter icing!
Ahhh!!! Marthat’s version has NOTHING on this! Printing this right away, and I’m picking up pumpkin at the store today 🙂 I was holding out on all my fall baking, but it just needs to happen. And I NEED to make this!!
So like .. I love you .. and like really .. Love you … like seriously honestly. This is the most amazing thing I ever saw … yuuummmmmness. Thanks for Sharing .. now Im going to have to start my diet over AFTER I consume half the loaf.. hee hee hee 😉
that icing is seriously amaaaaaaaazing.
I made the bread this weekend. IT WAS AMAZING! The bread isn’t obnoxious with a bunch of fall seasonings, it is just the perfect amount of…well perfect. The icing was a bit difficult for me, but I blame my father-in-law for distracting me. I think I took too long to pour it over the bread, so it kinda clumped on the bread instead. Regardless it was still delicious. Next time I’ll get it right and there will be a next time!
Thank you so much for such a delicious recipe, and for making me look good. (BTW I took this to my big Sunday Family Dinner and it was loved by all from the know-it-all cooks to the picky 3 year old.)
Oh my goodness…..this bread looks so delicious!! The icing just puts it over the top! Can’t wait to try it!! By the way, I’m a from scratch kinda girl too.
Awesome looking cake…I mean, bread. My family’s gonna have to sample this one!
Divine. Took it to my Bible study…loved by all! The only thing I might do to take it more “over the top” than it already is…adding toasted pecans on the glaze before it hardens….Next time.
Oh, and I love Fall in Michigan! Just moved from the Detroit area to Missouri…who also has fabulous autumns, thank goodness!
I made this cake over the weekend with a few modifications, and it was glorious. I halved the sugars and panicked when I didn’t have any ginger, so threw in a bit of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Beautiful!
thanks so much for sharing your masterpiece here! the color in these photos is absolutely brilliant! Love this pumpkin loaf! The brown butter nuttiness really makes this maple glaze have some real depth. Last year I was making a pumpkin quick-bread somewhat like this one – but I added about 1/4 cup of molassas to it in addition to the 2 kinds of sugar (but just a little less white sugar in my recipe) and I ended up with a kind of dark rich pumpkin-gingerbread loaf. It was fantastic – my favorite kind of Fall/Winter flavor mashups! (but it didn’t have a fantastic glaze like yours on it) That’s what your pumpkin loaf and maple glaze here does for me too – LOVE maple and pumpkin!
Love the idea of adding molasses! I have molasses ginger cookie on here and I love it! Maybe I should add pumpkin and see what happens?! Thanks for stopping by!
This is my favorite pumpkin bread recipe. I make it at least twice a month and we eat it for breakfast. I haven’t put on the glaze yet, simply because that might be too much sugar for my household. And I add cinnamon, cardamon, clove, and nutmeg to give it a little spice. Delicious!