Cream Cheese Pumpkin Bread

This week I decided I was in the mood to bake and even though I'm not a big pumpkin fan, this recipe caught my eye in a MixingBowl.com magazine because it just looked so good in the picture.  Besides the pumpkin, it's mostly ingredients you will have around the house if you bake frequently, so it's not very complicated.  The only thing is this recipe makes ALOT of pumpkin bread.  So I ended up taking the second loaf into the daycare and it was a big hit!  Also, if you want you can leave out the cream cheese filling and just make it as a pumpkin bread. 

Ingredients:

• Nonstick Cooking Spray
• 4 Cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 12-ounce (2 cups) semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 29-ounce can pumpkin
• 3 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons vanilla

Cream Cheese Filling

• 2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line two 9x5x3-inch loaf pans with parchment paper.  Coat paper with cooking spray.  In a large bowl, combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add chocolate chips and, if desired, nuts. (Tossing nuts and chips in flour will keep them from sinking during baking.)

In a mixing bowl, combine butter, pumpkin, sugar, eggs, sour cream and vanilla.  Beat with an electric mixer on medium until smooth.  Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture, 1 cup at a time, beating on low speed until combined.

In a separate mixing bowl prepare your filling by combining the cream cheese, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla.  Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. 

Spoon half of the batter into prepared pans.  Carefully spread cream cheese mixture over batter in pans.  Top with remaining batter.  If desired, use a fork or spatula to cut though batter and swirl.  Bake for 65 to 70 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool in pans on rack for 10 minutes.  Remove loaves from pans and cool completely on wire rack.

Makes 2 large loaves - 32 slices.

Notes:  I didn't have the pumpkin pie spice and didn't want to buy it just for this.  So I used a mixture of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg instead.  It took a little longer than the 70 minutes to bake completely.  I would say closer to an hour and a half.  Also, I did not put nuts in this...I figured the chocolate chips and filling were enough going on! 

Submitted by Christine Frost