Healthy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Bread

Being a big fan of pumpkin bread, I'm always on the lookout for some delicious variations. I wanted a bread that would make a good and relatively healthy dessert. Initially I was going to make cream cheese icing to frost the bread with. But then I thought, why not put the cream cheese inside the bread??? And the result was so amazing that I have to share!

This bread is moist, delicious, and gets away with using no butter and minimal sugar. Not too bad for pumpkin bread! It isn't overly sweet and makes a nice breakfast, snack, or of course dessert. And the swirls look just fantastic, almost too good to eat!

Try it out for yourself!

Step 1: Gather Your Ingredients!

For this pumpkin bread, you need the following:

Cream Cheese Batter:

-1 (8 ounce) package softened cream cheese

-1/2 cup icing sugar

-2 tbsp all-purpose flour

-1 egg

-1 tsp vanilla

Pumpkin Batter:

-1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

-1 tsp baking soda

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

-1/4 tsp nutmeg

-1 cup pumpkin puree

-1/2 cup vegetable oil

-2 eggs

-1 cup white sugar

-2 tbsp chia seeds

-1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Step 2: Cream Cheese Batter

Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, icing sugar, flour, 1 egg, and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Step 3: Pumpkin Batter

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chia seeds. Set aside.

In another large bowl, beat pumpkin, vegetable oil, 2 eggs, and white sugar. When well beaten add dry ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in walnuts.

Step 4: Preparing the Bread

Pour half of pumpkin batter into greased loaf pan. Pour 2/3 of cream cheese batter on top of pumpkin. Carefully pour remaining pumpkin batter on top of cream cheese batter, while attempting not to disrupt layer underneath.

Step 5: Design the Top

Using a spoon, make horizontal lines with the remaining cream cheese batter on top of the pumpkin batter. Use a small wooden dowel or a chopstick and drag it through the mixture in a zig-zag pattern. (see picture for example).