The Fresh Loaf

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Pumpkin breads for Canadian Thanksgiving

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Pumpkin breads for Canadian Thanksgiving

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving to those celebrating this weekend!
I tried shaping breads as Pumpkins for the occasion.

I tried this recipe first:
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2007/10/16/world-bread-food-day/
substituting 75% stone-ground whole wheat and 25% bread flour for the high extraction flour,
substituting canned pumpkin for the sweet potato,
substituting flax seed for pumpkin seed

When mixing I found it really hard to get the dough to develop & also didn't give it enough time to proof; there was very little oven spring.
I'm positive the wildyeastblog.com formula is wonderful given the lovely result pictured with the formula on the wildyeastblog site...I certainly didn't do this recipe justice.
My flour substitution might not have been ideal either, but welcome any thoughts anyone might have on this!

These little pumpkins are like bricks as a result of my efforts, so I stacked them like bricks for the photo!
Crust was tasty, crumb very moist, and a subtle pumpkin flavor.


Not feeling good about the first dough was shaping up for me, I started a second...Rose Levy Beranbaum's French Country Sourdough, with pumpkin puree swapped in for some of the water in the recipe. In The Bread Bible, Rose writes canned pumpkin puree is 90% water; using this as a guide, I used 200g of pumpkin puree for a triple recipe of this bread and then topped off with some additional water. These came out lighter with more oven spring - and will be shared with family tomorrow!

To shape these breads, I shaped boules and slashed starting at the bottom and up to the top, almost to center, trying to make "pumpkin lines". I took a small round cookie cutter, floured it, then twisted and gently pushed down, twisting back and forth, until I'd cleanly cut a "stem".
This idea I got from hanseata (Tyrolean Pumpkin Seed Mini Breads - thanks hanseata!)

Hope the second batch tastes OK tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving from breadsong

Comments

hanseata's picture
hanseata

Very beautiful looking loaves, Breadsong - I'm sure they taste good, too!

I'm glad the cookie cutter scoring was helpful - it's really a neat way to help with scoring, if the pattern is not too complicated. I just made some German pumpkin breads, and wanted an attractive, seasonal pattern. I used a big leaf shaped cookie cutter and the breads looked really beautiful.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Karin

Kürbisbrot - German Pumkin Bread

highmtnpam's picture
highmtnpam

Do you have snow to go along with your beautiful loaves??  We spent two wonderful Canadian Thanksgivings in Quebec and this brings back memories.  Pam

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello Karin and Pam, Thanks for your Thanksgiving wishes and compliments.

Karin, your leaf-scored bread is just perfect. What a fun technique (& thanks for giving me the German name for this bread - Kurbisbrot - I think the pumpkin belongs to the cucurbit family in the plant world? Perhaps the German word Kurbis and the English word cucurbit have a common (Latin?) origin?).

We're near the west coast & temperatures are mild, no snow yet. Pam I'm glad you have happy memories of Canada - Quebec is a beautiful province. I was there only briefly, once, and wish I could have stayed longer!

Regards, breadsong

 

gary.turner's picture
gary.turner

If you tripled the recipe, am I correct in assuming those smaller loaves are about 200g each, and the larger represents the single recipe sized loaf (~400g)?

I am considering a triple sized batch, and wondered whether the smaller loaves were a better route to go; e.g. better volume with the smaller, or just nicer table presentation.

Either way I go, you get the blame, as I would never have considered pumpkin bread had yours not turned out so nice.

cheers,

gary

gary.turner's picture
gary.turner

How did you decide on 200g of pumpkin puree? Was it enough? Too much?

thanks,

gary

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello Gary, I think the small boules weighed in at 220g each, and the balance went to the bigger boule (~500g).  Making the smaller ones increases the time it takes to get them into the oven, with the extra scoring....but the little one at dinner yesterday sure liked getting her own "kid-sized" pumpkin! So it was worth it!

I used 270g of water and 200g of pumpkin puree  to replace 450g of water in the final dough; I used 200g pumpkin puree only because that was the amount listed in the first formula I tried - a guess at an amount to substitute for Rose's formula x3.

I found the pumpkin flavor quite subtle but was expecting that; other posters had noted that sweet potato is the way to go for increased flavor, but I only had pumpkin on hand. The bread was still good though, & had lovely color.

I hope you have fun making these and thanks for your kind words...and hope your breads turn out fabulous!
Regards, breadsong

EvaB's picture
EvaB

and yes kids love kid sized anything! Having been a kid and my mother making a just for me pie! (she used a tin from a childs kitchen toy set, back when they were made of real metal not plastic)

And I suspect you could have used more pumpkin to have more taste, and sometimes it depends on the pumpkin too! I have tons of dried pumpkin around so need to make some with my rehydrated pumpkin.

We had a nice meal yesterday and only had plain old pumpkin pie! But then again, I didn't have time to bake anything and bought the pie at farmer's market.

And we didn't have snow either and we are way up north at around 55N latitude and have been known to have lovely storms on Thanksgiving!

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello Eva,
Revisiting this post today I realize I never thanked you for your nice comments. Please accept my belated thanks!
I will keep your comment in mind re: 'more pumpkin to taste', or perhaps use a pumpkin/sweet potato blend 
next time.
:^) from breadsong

EvaB's picture
EvaB

but thank you for it, and looking at them again, think they would be lovely to try to bake. Isuspect that pumpkin flavour might be in the eye or taste buds of the cook! LOL I used to make pumpkin pie from hubbard squash, a bit more fiberous, but with the added spices and milk, very few people could tell the difference! It is a bit lighter than regular pumpkin, and that can be fixed by a tad more molasses in the mix! The funny thing is I've made sweet potato pie and followed the pumpkin recipe just substituting the cooked sweet potato for the pumpkin and most people don't even realize its not pumpkin unless I tell them, then they can differentiate by taste.

freerk's picture
freerk

Don't ask me how I got on this thread in the middle of summer... but this is going straight to my favorites. We don't have Thanksgiving here, but I can think of a whole lot of other good reasons to make this bread when the time is ripe (and the pumpkins as well)

Thanks Breadsong

breadsong's picture
breadsong

Hello freerk,
Thank you so much for your comment :^)
I hope you will share photos of your handiwork!, when Pumpkin season rolls around.
:^) from breadsong