You're Only Two Ingredients Away From Easy Pumpkin Bread

The fall season seems to reach its end faster and faster each year, and to keep up with ever-accelerating time, you have to find quick-to-whip-up recipes that can get you in the seasonal spirit before it ends. Pumpkin bread is a fall comfort staple, but to make it even easier, TikTok users have circulated an incredibly simple way to make it at home. This recipe — which requires just two ingredients — takes about as much time to make as it takes a TikTok trend to die.

The TikTokers suggest mixing a can of pumpkin purée (which is probably not actually made from pumpkins) and a box of spice cake mix. The two consistencies may be difficult to combine entirely, so using a stand or hand mixer would be best. Add the batter to a loaf pan, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until the bread passes the toothpick test. The TikTok videos say the bake time should be around 30 to 35 minutes, but if the bread still isn't finished by then keep it in for longer.

Because of this recipe's shortcut ingredients and simple instructions, it doesn't yield quite the same texture and taste as a traditionally made pumpkin bread. It lacks a bread-like structure, and its taste isn't as powerful as typical recipes. However, there are small tweaks that can have large improvements on this two-ingredient pumpkin bread.

The shock behind this TikTok recipe is that it only takes two ingredients, but certain simple measures can make this easy recipe all the more tasty. One downside we should try to mitigate is that the TikTok recipe results in a soft, easy-to-fall-apart bread. 

To fix this, strain the pumpkin purée before combining it with the cake mix to remove as much excess liquid as possible. This will make mixing the two ingredients a bit more difficult, but it will save your final loaf from suffering an unpleasant, gummy texture. Another way to give the pumpkin bread more structure is by adding an egg or two to the mix. While this will increase the amount of liquid in the batter, the eggs will bind everything together; producing a more desirable texture and giving strength to individual slices of the bread.

As we mentioned before, this recipe's simplicity also sacrifices its flavor slightly. Pumpkin bread is known for its gourd-y taste infused with autumnal spices. Adding a dash of extra fall flavors like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, or allspice will bring forward the typical pumpkin bread feel. Sprinkle the top of the loaf with some cinnamon sugar before placing it in the oven to form a crust on top. When you're done with the first few slices, make sure to store the pumpkin bread properly to keep it moist.