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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

Cover loaf with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 30 minutes or until done.

Let cool and enjoy!