The rise of the pumpkin bread

Big N's Pumpkin Patch at the end of September
We had a bunch of volunteer pumpkins in the garden this past summer. They began from the compost pile and with a little neglect and a lot of water, we had quite the pumpkin patch. We even had one pumpkin that could not decide if it preferred the inside or the outside of the garden and opted to grow right through the fence.



At the end of the summer, we had a mixture of jack-o-lanterns and sugar pumpkins. I set the sugar pumpkins aside with plans to bake. I finally roasted the pumpkins and froze the puree for later.

I came across a recipe for a yeast based pumpkin bread and I was intrigued. I immediately made grand plans to bake. With my typical schedule, this means it happened about 6 weeks later.

Last night I started the dough and it took 3 hours for the first rise to complete. I am blaming that on how cold our house gets. When I put the dough in the loaf pans, I opted to use an overnight proof and popped the two loaves into the fridge.

This morning, I baked the bread. It smells heavenly in the house. I am now planning on making pumpkin rolls for thanksgiving next year just so I can have this on hand for a leftover turkey sandwich.



Here is the wonderful recipe with my alterations.

Pumpkin yeast bread
1/2 cup warm water
2 packages (2 tablespoons) active dry yeast
2/3 cup warm milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups puréed pumpkin, either fresh or canned
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 1/2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

In a bowl of a stand mixer fit with the mixing paddle, stir yeast into water to soften. Add warm milk, eggs, pumpkin, oil, 4 cups flour, brown sugar, salt, ginger and cardamom to yeast mixture. Mix vigorously for 2 minutes. Change the mixer paddle to the dough hook when needed.

Gradually add remaining flour, a little at a time, until you have a dough stiff enough to knead. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead, adding flour as necessary, until you have a smooth, elastic dough.

Put dough into an oiled bowl. Turn once to coat entire ball of dough with oil. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Turn dough out onto a lightly oiled work surface. Divide dough in half. Shape dough into loaves and place in well-greased 10 x 5-inch pans or, shape half into a loaf, and other half into 12 large dinner rolls. Cover with plastic rise and let rise in the refrigerator overnight.

Bake in a preheated 375°F oven. Loaves bake about 30 minutes, rolls about 20. Check the internal temperature of each with an instant-read thermometer; a reading of 190°F means bread or rolls are done.

Immediately remove bread or rolls from pans and cool on a wire rack to prevent crust from becoming soggy. For a shiny crust, brush tops of bread or rolls lightly with vegetable oil. Makes 2 large loaves, or 1 large loaf and 12 dinner rolls.

Zucchini month

August has a little known distinction. It is the annual give-your-neighbor-giant-zucchini month. This holiday is very well know to anyone with a neighbor, co-worker, friend or somewhat casual acquaintance with a garden full Zucchini.

Giant Zucchini are somewhat intimidating, but we are making a huge effort to use those two ginormous yellow zucchinis our neighbor so kindly bestowed upon us.

We have had the following (all from a single zuchini)
1. Zucchini bread - 2 full size loaves, 2 mini loaves, 12 muffins, 18 mini-muffins. (hubby says add chocolate chips next time)
2. Zucchini fritters -- Major hit with Big N
3. Zucchini Pie -- Very apple pie like.

One Zucchini down, one to go.

Dinner tonight

We had planned on hamburgers tonight for dinner, that is until my daughter was napping and Pete was somewhere in the land management land with the dogs AND I realized we didn't have hamburger rolls.

Big N and I decided we could make some because there was no way I wanted to wake up little N to drag her off to the store on a Sunday afternoon.

The rolls smell fantastic. I had enough dough that I made a small round loaf for tomorrow.



We did a combinations of two recipes, one from the Hillbilly housewife's site and a second from An American Housewife's site.

The two recipes are very similar. I tend to lean more towards the the first one, omitting the powdered milk. I also opt to proof the yeast in warm water prior to adding it into my mixer with the dough hook attachment.

I do get a more consistent loaf using the mixer over kneading the bread by hand, which is fine by me. Its easier to clean up the bowl than my counter. However, the kids like helping with hand kneading more. If both kids are helping, we all knead it by hand.

Pete has only good things to say about all of the bread experiments thus far.

We love carbs!

Baking with a three year old

You might never know...

The bread we served was especially delicious with the strawberry rhubarb jam we made last summer.

I didn't bother shaping it into a loaf, instead making a rustic loaf baked on the pizza stone.

Special Ingredient

Little N was watching me make some bread dough. I am planning on proofing it over night and baking it tomorrow before we have dinner with Pete's mom and sister.

Little N reached into the bowl and yanked off a piece of dough. I didn't stop her, there weren't any eggs in the recipe and I had sampled it myself to make sure it wasn't too salty. I turned around for a second and looked back to see her patting the dough with a pretty grossed out expression.

"Yucky! I put it back!"

The question is, will I bake and forget to mention our special ingredient or start from scratch...