To be honest, this recipe wasn’t a success at first go. I tried to bake this gluten-free pumpkin bread without any leavening agents at first, but the result was a bit too mushy inside. My next go was with baking soda, but too much of it with no acidic medium. So, I ended up with perfectly textured bread, but with quite strong soda flavour. Then I finally decided I should google the baking chemistry stuff and discovered that apple cider vinegar or lemon juice should be added to make the soda work properly. As a result, I was able to halve the soda amount and save the day.
The Ingredients in My Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bread
Let me start by saying what I DON’T use in my vegan pumpkin bread. You won’t find any eggs, oil (not even coconut oil), xantham gum, or refined sugar (not even brown sugar) in this recipe. To no great surprise you’d find that most pumpkin bread recipes out there contain all those things in addition to white flours and butter. So what’s there left to use?
Dry Ingredients
- Gluten-free oat flour is an awesome alternative to regular flours. Should you be intolerant to avenin in oats, check for substitutions below the recipe.
- I also brought in coconut flour to bring down the glycemic load. It’s important to note that coconut flour is not the same as ground coconut. Instead, the flour has reduced fat – look for about 12 grams of fat per 100 grams of flour.
- My pumpkin pie spice mix includes turmeric, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. Should you be able to buy ready pumpkin spice mix at store, go for it!
Wet Ingredients
- Flax egg replaces chicken eggs and does so wonderfully. You simply combine ground flaxseeds and water to get flax egg – all the quantities and instructions are in the recipe.
- In most cases pumpkin bread recipes contain pumpkin purée, but I decided to fold in raw grated pumpkin. I’ll dig into the reason in just a bit.
- Baking soda does the rising and apple cider vinegar lets it happen. Another acidic medium you could use is lemon juice.
- Additive free nut butter is such a good ingredient to use instead of oils or butter. After all, you get only the good stuff from nuts and seeds – fibre, minerals, vitamins and unsaturated fats.
- Plant milk is excellent when it comes to replacing dairy milk. The variety is huge – oat milk, soymilk, almond milk, cashew milk, hazelnut milk, hemp milk, walnut milk, millet milk, quinoa milk, rice milk, buckwheat milk etc.
- I sweetened my gluten-free pumpkin bread with date sugar, as it’s closest to whole food among sweeteners
Finally, let’s set the scene for this pumpkin bread…
Imagine brightly coloured autumn that you can admire through the window from the cosiness of your own living room. If you have a fireplace, it’s lit up and you’re all snug and warm in front of it. The flavours of pumpkin bread are floating from the kitchen and you’re waiting for it to cool to have a slice with applesauce or nut butter accompanied by a cup of tea or coffee. And all that while chatting to your best friend, partner or child. Now, do you fit into this scene?
Do let me know when you make this recipe or in case you have any questions or comments about my pumpkin bread. Feel free to comment below!

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread
Perfectly moist vegan gluten-free pumpkin bread recipe that uses neither oils nor refined sugar. It’s a healthy alternative
Ingredients
- Dry:
- 110g (3.9oz) oat flour
- 110g (3.9oz) coconut flour
- ½ tbsp. cinnamon
- ½ tsp. cardamom
- ½ tsp. ginger
- ¼ tsp. allspice
- ⅛ tsp. cloves
- ⅛ tsp. nutmeg
- 1 tsp. turmeric
- 1 tsp. baking soda or 3 tsps. low sodium baking powder
- ½ tsp. Himalayan salt
- Wet:
- 3 tbsps. ground flaxseeds + 90g (3.2oz) water
- 100g (3.5oz) peanut butter at room temperature
- 4 tbsps. date sugar (see substitutions below)
- 180g (6.3oz) oat milk
- 1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
- 150g (5.3oz, 1½ cup) grated pumpkin
Instructions
- reheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
- Start by combining 3 tbsps. of ground flaxseeds with 90g (3.2oz) water in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Then, grate pumpkin or butternut squash.
- Next, in a large mixing bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
- Now add date sugar into the flax mixture and stir until the sugar
dissolves. Then, pour in peanut butter and mix until well incorporated.
At this point start adding oat milk gradually until you have a nice and
smooth mixture. Finally, mix in apple cider vinegar. - Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry and mix really well with spatula until everything is well incorporated.
- Finally, fold in grated pumpkin. Don’t worry, the batter is supposed to be quite thick.
- Transfer the batter into the prepared loaf pan
or tin (lined with parchment paper, about 25x9cm, 8.5×4.4inch) and bake
at 175°C (350°F) for 70 minutes until golden brown and toothpick
inserted comes out clean or almost clean. Remove from oven and lift the
bread out of the tin. Place it to cool on a cooling rack (wire rack) or
on folded kitchen paper on a chopping board. - Let the pumpkin bread cool completely before slicing or it’d deflate and end up being less fluffy.
Notes
Instead of measuring all the spices separately, you may use 4 teaspoons of ready pumpkin pie spice.
Nutrition Information
Yield 10 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 136Total Fat 2gSaturated Fat 1gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 5mgSodium 374mgCarbohydrates 26gFiber 1gSugar 4gProtein 4g