I positively love my CSA because I’ve been challenged each week to come up with great recipes like this carrot cream cheese swirl bread. If you are unfamiliar with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), it’s a great way to get veggies and fruit direct from local farms. You pay for a share up front and then get a basket of produce every week for a certain period of time, usually over multiple months. I absolutely love the randomness of the CSA – we get whatever is in season and whatever grew happily on the farm for the summer.
Which also means that sometimes you end up with veggies that you might feel a bit “eh” about. Like carrots. And sometimes you end up with a lot of a particular veggie that you feel “eh” about. Like carrots.
We are on week 16 or so with our CSA. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, but I’m running out of inspiration for what to do with all the carrots. At the same time, here we are, nearly in October. It’s definitely time for pumpkin spice and pumpkin and warm and cozy foods. So this week, when faced with a whole bunch of carrots, I decided it was time to combine carrots, pumpkin spice, in some sort of comforting baked good. Thus, I made carrot cream cheese swirl bread. Honestly, how can you go wrong with pumpkin pie spice and cream cheese? Plus – carrots, which makes this a healthy breakfast food, right?
Ok, fine, carrot cream cheese swirl bread may not be a calorie conscious bread, but it’s super yummy first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee. I’ve been loving eating this while gazing out at the red and orange leaves on the trees. It’s an autumn color-coordinated bread.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup flour
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup oil
- 2 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cup grated carrots
- ½ package cream cheese (4 ounces)
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Combine the dry ingredients, from flour through salt. Create a well in the dry ingredients and add in all ingredients from the oil through the vanilla. Stir in the grated carrots.
- Make the cream cheese filling by combining the cream cheese with the sugar, vanilla, and pumpkin pie spice.
- Grease a loaf pan. Place half of the carrot bread in the bottom of the pan. Spoon the cream cheese down the middle. Place the final half of the carrot bread mix over the cream cheese.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the bread comes out clean.
- Makes 1 loaf. Enjoy!
