High Protein Pumpkin Bread Seitan

If you haven’t tried using vital wheat gluten to make desserts, bread-y foods, or bread-y desserts, hopefully this High Protein Pumpkin Bread Seitan will change your mind! It takes less than 5 minutes of effort to make, and then you end up with a big loaf of high protein pumpkin bread to eat for breakfast or as a pre-workout snack throughout the week!

Most recipe creators use protein powder for their high protein dessert and snack recipes, but I’m personally not a big fan of using protein powder for things like this. The results vary so much depending on which brand, type or flavor of protein powder you’re using. Because I want you to have consistent results that match mine without having to buy specific brands of protein powders, I stick with ingredients like vital wheat gluten, peanut powder, TVP, silken tofu, edamame puffs, etc.

These are products that rarely vary between manufacturers so you can have the same results I have without buying specialty ingredients. Vital Wheat Gluten is also about 3 – 4 x cheaper than most popular protein powders (at least in the US) that you’ll find in stores or all over your social media being pushed by influencers. The final reason that I rarely use protein powders in my snack and dessert recipes is because there are very few cases in which the protein powder doesn’t make the food taste worse – whether it’s because of the artificial flavor or gritty texture.

My focus is on making delicious foods that happen to have protein. Not nearly inedible protein powder-packed foods that force you to buy specialty protein powders so that you’ll use my affiliate codes. I only use protein powder if it makes sense, and for High Protein Pumpkin Bread, vital wheat gluten definitely works better 🙂

If I’ve convinced you to try sweet seitan, hopefully you’ll also check out my High Protein Banana Bread and Pumpkin Spice Donut Holes as well! I have a recipe to make this High Protein Pumpkin Bread in cookie form too, so that it’s easier to travel with!

Stuff You’ll Need

• Pumpkin Puree – I used pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling). If you are using pumpkin pie filling, you may want to dial down the sugar or syrup a bit because it will be sweeter than pumpkin puree.
• Vital Wheat Gluten – this is the main protein source for this High Protein Pumpkin Bread Seitan. It’s typically used to make meat replacements, but man, I really love using it in desserts, despite how weird it sounds. As long as you couple it with the right ingredients (to reduce the gluten formation and leaven the bread), and don’t over-mix, it comes out soft and pillowy – and a little chewy, but not like your typical seitan level chew. You can find vital wheat gluten at most grocery stores, and since it’s shelf-stable, you can also buy it online. I’ve had good luck with the brands Bob’s Red Mill and Anthony’s.
  • Side note, please weigh the vital wheat gluten when you make this. It’s a very dense powder, and if you’re only using measuring cups, it’s very easy to add more than you think you are.
• Light Brown Sugar – if you’re on a cut or really watching your calories, you can definitely sub this out with any zero/low calorie sweeteners that are suitable for 1:1 replacement, like monk fruit.
• Vanilla Extract – good luck trying to stop me from adding vanilla to baked goods.
• Baking Powder, Baking Soda – don’t skip these; they help push the banana bread seitan away from your typical, very chewy, seitan texture and more into a soft dessert.
• Salt – adjust to taste.
• Cinnamon, Pumpkin Pie Spice – I think both of these add some nice warmth to the Pumpkin Bread, but if you really hate one of these ingredients, feel free to leave it out.
• Mini Vegan Chocolate Chips – these are an optional ingredient, but I really think chocolate makes everything better.

How to Make This & Pictures

• Pre-heat the oven to 300 F (149 C).
• **It is important to note that we definitely need to weight the vital wheat gluten, as it is deceptively dense. If you only use measuring cups, you will end up with way more than you think you have. For reference, when I have weighed what I measured as 1/4 cup of vital wheat gluten, I ended up around 45 grams instead of the listed 30 grams (on the nutritional label).
• In a large bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients for the High Protein Pumpkin Bread Seitan – pumpkin puree, brown sugar, syrup, vanilla extract and chocolate chips.

• In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. It’s important to do this step before adding it to the wet ingredients to allow for even dispersion of the smaller ingredients like salt, baking soda and baking powder. The dough comes together really fast and we definitely don’t want to over-mix it, so making sure those smaller ingredients are mixed well in this step ensures more even dough!

• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine. Please, please, please don’t over-mix. Mix the bare minimum amount to combine everything otherwise you will have tougher, more chewy dough, and it will be less bread-like and soft. I use a spatula for this step.
• Your dough should be wet and glossy, but not loose. Refer to picture below. If your dough is too wet and loose, add a small amounts of vital wheat gluten until it looks similar to the texture below. If your dough is not wet enough and you can’t get all of the dry ingredients to mix in all the way, add very small amounts of water until it looks like the dough below.

• Place parchment paper in a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan.
• Dump the High Protein Pumpkin Bread Seitan dough into the loaf pan and smooth out with a spatula.
• Bake for 70 – 75 minutes.
• The bread will puff up quite a bit. You can tell it’s done baking when the entire bread is puffed up, including the middle. The bread should be springy/spongy and not deflated.
• Allow to cool for a few minutes before cutting into, and enjoy!

Silly Little Haiku

Pumpkin Bread Seitan

Vital Wheat Gluten is great

Better than powder