Pumpkin Streusel Bread with Cream Cheese Swirl

Lately I've been having a huge craving for pumpkin bread. I've made it before and I've even made a skinny version but this year I was inspired by Pinterest (pinspired?) and all the cream cheese swirl recipes. Um...did you know that all those recipes are different from each other? Which one to choose? So, I wrote 'em all down and then compared them to each other and to my own recipe and did some calculations (math was involved!) and made some assumptions and...well, here we are.

Most of the cream cheese swirl bread recipes don't include a streusel topping but I didn't let that stop me. Of course you could make the argument that, since we already have a cream cheese layer, there's no need for streusel. My answer to that would be that, when it comes to streusel, need has nothing to do with it!

Now I know you all are probably thinking this is a pretty decadent dessert but consider that it doesn't say cake anywhere. This is bread. That's breakfast food. Cream cheese? Also breakfast food. The pumpkin, of course, is super healthy so what we have here, actually, is healthy breakfast food. Now run along and make yourselves a nice healthy breakfast. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Streusel Topping:
1/2 Stick unsalted butter, melted
3/4 Cup all purpose flour
1/4 Cup sugar
1/2 Teaspoon cinnamon
Dash of salt

Bread:
1 3/4 Cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 Cup sugar
1 Teaspoon baking powder
1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 Stick unsalted butter
1 Cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 Egg
1/2 Cup milk

Cheese Swirl:
8 oz. Cream cheese
1/4 Cup sugar
1 Egg
1 Teaspoon vanilla

To make the streusel topping, combine the sugar, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir in the melted butter and then the flour. Mix well and set aside.

To make the cream cheese layer, blend the ingredients with a hand mixer, stand mixer or food processor until thoroughly combined and free of lumps. Set aside.

Make the bread dough by combining together the butter, sugar, egg, milk, vanilla and pumpkin and mix until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, spice and salt. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir just until combined.

Pour half the bread batter into a greased loaf pan, add the cream cheese mixture and swirl into the bread batter with a knife. Top with the remaining bread batter and sprinkle on the streusel topping. Bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for approximately 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Makes approximately 8 servings.