Pumpkin Bread

Its November, the autumn has well and truly settled in and in case you have missed it, its Halloween season!! I swear, the shops have started selling Halloween tat back in July, but now I can give in an buy as much cra.. I mean decoration as I feel like. Plus Mr Ranty just informed me that he has ordered a smoke machine, strobe lights and horror sounds – so you can see, it’s a family event in our household

Plus, Ms Rantlet is two now and is much more interested in the holidays, so I am really looking forward to introducing her to Halloween and might even have to dress her up in a silly costume or two :) 

Anyway, where was I? Right, Halloween, autumn … I love autumn, I love American word for it – “fall” – because that it exactly what it feels like. The leaves are turning copper colour, the days are getting shorter, but still mild with a ray of sunshine or two. And the best thing about autumn is pumpkins – not the huge orange decorative things they sell all over the place (although I shall be making good use of those for Halloween lanterns), but good old tasty grey pumpkins. My local farmers market – Telegraph Hill market – has them for £2 each, such a bargain!! We bought a HUGE pumpkin last week and will be buying more, while the season lasts.

We managed to get four meals out of that massive pumpkin, you can see how incredibly versatile it is:

-          Thai pumpkin curry

-          Smokey pumpkin and bacon soup

-          Roast pumpkin as a side serving for a steak and kidney pudding (recipe to come)

-          Pumpkin frittata

-          Pumpkin bread

 

By the time I decided to make pumpkin bread, I only had a small slice of roast pumpkin left, but it turned out it was more than enough. Don’t roast a pumpkin especially for this recipe, just look at it as a way to use any left over pumpkin you might have. PS: I think it would work well with roast potatoes as well

 

Pumpkin Bread

250ml water, luke warm

25g sugar

2 tsp active dried yeast (I use Allinson or Hovis)

400g white flour

100g wholemeal flour

1 tsp salt

125g roast pumpkin, cut in large cubes

 

Place water, sugar and yeast in a free standing mixer, leave for about 5 minutes for the year to do its magic. Again, with active yeast you don’t really need to activate it, as they should be good to go as they are, but I do like to see the yeast bubbling away before I start mixing in the rest f the ingredients.

Add flours, salt and pumpkin to the liquids and mix on low speed – speed 2 on KitchenAid – for 6 minutes. The dough will look quite well for the first five minutes or so, don’t be tempted to add any extra flour, it will come together at the last minute. The dough will be quite soft and slightly sticky, lovely orange colour with some bigger pumpkin chunks showing through.

I contemplated adding some butter to the dough, but the pumpkin adds enough flavour and creaminess, so I don’t think it needs it.

But I think the dough could take some spices – maybe cumin or ginger, if you want to make it a bit more interesting.

Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm (or shower cap as I do it) and leave in a warm place for 2 to 3 hours (depending how warm your house is), until the dough has doubled in size.

 

I think the texture of the dough is robust enough to stand up to a free shaped loaf, but I decided to bake it in a loaf tin. Line the tin with baking parchment, shape the dough into a batard, place it in a tin, cover it with clinfilm (shower cap) and leave in a warm place for another hour or so, until well risen.

 

Preheat the oven to 180C and bake for 35 minutes, until deep golden brown on top. Leave the loaf in the tin for about 5-10 minutes, take it out of the tin and leave to cool completely on a cooling rack.

 

The bread is very soft, with a hint of sweetness from both the sugar and pumpkin, and its absolutely gorgeous with a good spread of salted butter on it.

I didn't have time to take a photo of it before it has disappeared - Ranty Man managed to snapped a photo, so I will upload it soon