Pumpkin-Mincemeat Bread
Pumpkin mincemeat bread with sourdough starter, pumpkin pie spice, walnuts, and brown sugar. A spiced quick bread that makes multiple loaves, perfect for holiday gifting and freezing.
YIELD
4 loavesPREP
15COOK
READY
This recipe makes a big batch for a reason. With three to five loaves depending on pan size, pumpkin bread loaded with mincemeat and walnuts is built for sharing. Wrap the extras in foil and freeze for months, or hand them out as holiday gifts straight from your kitchen.
The sourdough starter is the secret ingredient here. It adds a subtle tang that balances all the sweetness from the dual sugars, pumpkin pie spice, and mincemeat. You don’t get a sourdough rise since this is a quick bread leavened with baking powder and soda, but that fermented flavor gives the crumb complexity you won’t find in a standard pumpkin loaf.
Mincemeat stirs in with the nuts at the end, and its fruit-and-spice richness turns every slice into something that tastes like fall in concentrated form. Stir gently here. Overmixing a quick bread this heavy develops gluten and makes the loaf tough instead of tender.
Pro Tips
- Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just barely combined. Lumpy batter is fine. Smooth batter means you’ve overmixed.
- Test with a toothpick in the center at 55 minutes. The mincemeat and pumpkin make the interior very moist, so a few sticky crumbs are okay, but wet batter is not.
- Cool the loaves completely before wrapping. Trapping warm bread in plastic creates condensation that turns the crust soggy.
- This bread actually tastes better the next day. The spices and mincemeat meld overnight.
Variations
- Chocolate chip: Fold in dark chocolate chips with the mincemeat for a sweet-spiced contrast.
- Nut-free: Swap the walnuts for pepitas (pumpkin seeds) for a nut-free version that keeps the crunch.
- Cream cheese glaze: Drizzle cooled loaves with a thin cream cheese icing for a dressed-up presentation.
Ingredients
Directions
Grease three 9 x 5 or five 7½ x 4 loaf pans, set aside.
Preheat over to 350℉ (180℃).
In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pumpkin pie spice, granulated sugar and brown sugar; set aside.
In a medium bowl, beat eggs.
Stir in sourdough starter, water, oil and pumpkin.
Pour all at once into flour mixture.
Stir until dry ingredients are just moistened.
Stir in mincemeat and nuts.
Pour evenly into prepared pans.
Bake in preheated oven 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
Turn out of pans.
Cool top side up on a rack.
Wrap each cooled loaf in plastic wrap or foil as a gift or to freeze.
Thaw wrapped frozen loaves at room temperature 2 hours.
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