Pumpkin Streusel Loaf Cake is everything you love about pumpkin pie in a delicately sweet loaf cake beneath a pumpkin spice streusel. And I do mean PUMPKIN spice because we’re adding purée to the crumb, too.

Disclaimer: The following post contains affiliate links. If you click the link and make a purchase, I’ll receive a commission at no extra cost to you. This is how I keep the oven on, so I appreciate your support!

overhead shot of pumpkin streusel loaf cake surrounded by an orange and brown plaid towel and pine cones and acorns

We’ve covered how to make your own pumpkin purée, so it’s time to really put it to use. Sure, you could make a pumpkin pie, but you could also make a delicious cake, too. What I’m saying is, you can have your cake and eat pie, too.

Bad jokes aside, let’s talk about why you need to try this recipe.

First off, this was an experiment in streusel toppings made without butter, and it worked so well!

Second, using a couple lightening up methods like reducing sugar and swapping eggs for egg whites, each slice comes to 167 calories.

And third, honestly, I get a little pie’d out this time of year, and I think we all need more cake.

The Great Streusel Experiment

The idea behind this recipe was that I wanted to make my Apple Crumble Pie with a sturdier streusel topping. Recipe testing is great, but after two apple pies in one week, I needed to change things up and still test that crumb topping.

Then, I struck upon a magic combination. All I did was reduce the sugar, even out the oats and flour, and swap the butter for pumpkin purée. The result was a crunchier and more toothsome topping.

Pumpkin streusel loaf cake on a wire cooling rack with pinecones and acorns and a fall plaid dishtowel in the background

Lightening Up

This brings us to my second reason to be excited for this bread. It’s light(er)! Yes, there is butter and real sugar here. It’s the holidays, and I’m not about to throw you all a Stevia recipe. I know what I’m about, y’all.

But, just because I didn’t want to cut out the fat and sugar completely doesn’t mean that it needs to be a heavy, tooth-decaying monstrosity, either.

So, the butter was taken out of the topping as well as half of the sugar, and half the flour was replaced with oats. That means that while being lighter it’s also marginally more nutritious. We tell ourselves funny things to feel good about eating cake, don’t we?

And like I said, I started with my favorite pumpkin cake recipe. But then I cut the sugar to a third of the original and dabbled in a little molasses to round out the sweetness. The beauty of molasses is that it brings a unique holiday flavor to whatever you use it in, so it doesn’t seem out of place at all.

The last thing I did was literally just about cutting fat and calories: I used egg whites instead of whole eggs. I’ll be the first to proclaim the benefits of whole eggs (nutrient bomb!), but they have their place. That place just wasn’t in this cake on this day.

Pumpkin streusel loaf cake on a white plate with a slice cut off of it, surrounded by pinecones and acorns with a plaid dishtowel

Sometimes, We Just Need Cake

Right around Thanksgiving, it kind of feels like all the dessert recipes coming out are pies. Pumpkin, Pecan, Apple, Chess, Tollhouse… Actually, I keep seeing Cherry Pie, and I’m very curious how that happened. Cherries are definitely not in season.

Anyways, that’s just to say that I’m preemptively pie’d out. So, in lieu of pie, maybe you could bring this pumpkin streusel cake to your Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving dinner party.

Your traditionalists will probably act disappointed that “you’ve deprived everyone of pie,” but have you really?

No. Everyone else is probably dreading having to pretend they like either pumpkin or pecan pie after overeating the mashed potatoes. Ah, and here you’ve brought a lighter, less sugary cake full of the traditional Thanksgiving dessert flavor. Look at you, hero!

Front view of pumpkin streusel loaf cake with orange and brown plaid dishtowel in the background and pinecones and acorns in the mid and foreground.

That’s Pumpkin Streusel Loaf Cake

It’s light, easy, delicious, and it’s not pie. Don’t think I’m going to skip posting a million pie recipes after this (what a hypocrite, geez), but I needed to share this great cake recipe before I dove into that pie crust extravaganza.

So, Happy Autumn, everyone! Please comment below and tell me what you’re looking forward to this holiday season. And don’t forget to subscribe for a neat freebie and weekly blog updates right to your inbox!

This post was originally published on November 19, 2019, but was updated September 24, 2020 for content and photos!