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Hokkaido pumpkin bread with cinnamon, sage YW and SD combo

joc1954's picture
joc1954

Hokkaido pumpkin bread with cinnamon, sage YW and SD combo

Every autumn we have abundance of pumpkins in our garden. Most of them are Hokkaido pumpkins which have an orange skin and more yellowish meat. I usually use Hokkaido pumpkins for preparing pumpkin soup or pumpkin gnocchi with brown butter and sage leaves (one of the recent recipes is published here with a nice video), but this year I decided to make Hokkaido pumpkin bread with SD and sage yeast water combo.

Hokkaido pumpkin from our garden.

I almost never do completely white bread so also for this bread I decided to use 15% of wholegrain spelt flour and 15% wholegrain rye flour. The flour was freshly milled few hours before mixing the dough.

Procedure is quite straightforward:  First prepare SD levain and sage (if you have) YW levain and let them ferment for about 8 hours. The levain should be bubbly and active. If you don’t have sage YW or any YW just skip preparation. The final bread will be great without that as well. In this case put 5-10 fresh sage leaves in the butter used for preparing pumpkin puree. My sage yeast water was not very active so the majority of raising power was gained by SD levain. YW levain actually added just the sage taste and probably just a little bit raising power.

Preparing pumpkin puree.

Then prepare Hokkaido pumpkin puree.  You can use canned one (any pumpkin puree if you don’t have Hokkaido puree at your hand), I prepared fresh one from Hokkaido pumpkin from my garden. I rarely use preprocessed ingredients if I can use fresh one either from my garden or bought fresh on the farmer’s market. Wash it, remove all seeds and slice the pumpkin to 1/3” (8mm) thick pieces. Deliberately I didn’t peel the pumpkin as the skin gives so much color to the puree.   I used about 40g of butter and sautéed until they became soft. Instead of using sage yeast water you can put sage leaves after butter has melted while preparing pumpkin puree and remove them when the pumpkin slices become soft and start browning. Season that with salt or increase the amount of salt in the dough recipe. At the end use hand blender to prepare puree. I added 50 g of water to make blending easier (see the recipe ingredients specification).  I started with about 450 grams of sliced pumpkin and a lot of water evaporated so the estimated quantity of puree was about 250 to 300 grams.

Adding pumpkin seeds and puree to dough. In my first attempt the seeds were not cut.

The initial dough hydration is pretty low because the puree brings a lot of additional moisture. Estimated final hydration is between 73-78% - depends on the quantity of added puree. I was using AP flour, but you can use also stronger bread flour. AP flour makes the crumb really soft. There is lot of place to play with the taste of this bread - it depends on the quantity of added pumpkin puree, sage and cinnamon. In my next bake of the same bread during this weekend I added a little bit more cinnamon but found later on that it was just a little bit too much. So be cautious with the cinnamon (unless you would like that cinnamon taste would be the prevailing one).

Dough at the end of bulk fermentation

Dough preparation:

1.) Mix levain (SD and YW if you prepared it), water and flour with hand to get a shaggy mass and let it rest from 20-60 minutes (autolyse). Desired dough temperature is 27 to 29 dC (80 to 84 dF)
2.) Add salt and mix thoroughly with hand.  
3.) Do stretch & fold every 30 minutes. Add toasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin puree one hour into bulk fermentation (at second stretch & fold).
4.) After 2.5 to 3 hours of bulk fermentation (watch the dough, not the clock) divide the dough, preshape it and let it rest for 15-30 minutes on the bench.
5.) Do final shaping and let it rise for about 1.5 - 2 hours or retard immediately and bake it direct from refrigerator after 6-12 hours. Use finger poke test to estimate when the dough is ready to be baked.
6.) Bake in Dutch oven – for 10 minutes at 240 dC (460 dF) and then reduce to 220 dC (435 dF). Open the lid after 30 minutes and bake for another 10-20 minutes.   Alternatively bake with steam for 15 minutes, after that continue with convection bake.
7.) Cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.

Another two loaves - one with curved scoring and on another one I was just playing with scoring.

 

The crumb is yellow, very soft and tastes heavenly.

 

The crumb was pretty much opened due to YW combo and relatively high hydration due to added pumpkin puree.

After adding the puree the dough becomes very silky due to used butter. Be careful when adding cinnamon and sage leaves as both have quite strong taste so you can quickly add too much. My goal was that cinnamon and sage add just enough taste to enrich the pumpkin taste in bring it to a completely new level. Of course it is up to you how much of cinnamon and sage taste you want in this bread.  

My wife and neighbors evaluated this bread as the best bread I have ever made. It is very soft bread with pronounced yellow crumb, not sweet but with warm note of cinnamon and sage spice. Topped with some butter brings you straight to heaven.  

Happy baking, Joze

Comments

Ru007's picture
Ru007

Well done Joze!! 

The crumb looks amazing! I love the beautiful colour. The addition of cinnamon is such a great idea, its one of my favorite spices. I never would have thought to add sage. Your creativity is really inspiring :)

I really like that you made your own puree and that you left the skin on! 

I'm sure this one tasted amazing, your family is lucky to be able to enjoy this with you. 

I've just taken a loaf with butternut squash in it out of the oven.  Personally, i prefer butternut to pumpkin. hope my result is half as good as yours. Our formulas are similar but really different at the same time :) 

Great post Joze :)

joc1954's picture
joc1954

You are just too nice! I like that I am giving you some new ideas for playing with spices. Adding sage was not new to me as I had done the pumpkin gnocchi so many times. As strange as it looks like, but adding sage leaves to the butter really boosts the favor. There are not many dishes where I use sage, but gnocchi or this bread really benefit from it. 

I have also some butternut squash from my garden and usually I just make the soup out of them. The Hokkaido pumpkins are really funny as the skin looks so hard and though but actually it softens very quickly and adds so much color.

Eagerly waiting for your post!

Happy baking Ru!

Joze

Ru007's picture
Ru007

Why did you use a sourdough levain and sage YW, since you added sage to the puree? 

Thanks Joze.

I've posted my loaf :)

joc1954's picture
joc1954

As probably almost nobody has sage YW I suggested another solution which also gives additional sage taste to the dough just by adding 5 to 10 fresh sage leaves to the butter while preparing puree.

Maybe I was not clear enough in my post.

Happy baking, Joze

 

hreik's picture
hreik

I am intrigued and awed by your spice/herb pairings!  They make so much sense, but sense I never seem to have.  I think I'd need a lot more confidence and experience b/f doing what you did.

The loaves look just delicious.  A little butter and I'd be all set.

just a gorgeous and creative bake, Joze.  What an inspiration you are.

hester

joc1954's picture
joc1954

This spice/herb paring was not invented by me so all honor should go to somebody else. I think I was like you without enough confidence until a year ago. At that time we had kind of reality show on one commercial TV in Slovenia where there was a competition for the award of 100,000 EUR and become a chef. I learned quite a lot from the competitors and also from different chefs who were evaluating dishes. Especially one of the chefs, Sasu Laukkonen, who has his own restaurant in Helsinki, Finland awarded by 1 Michelin star,  really inspired me with his philosophy. This year in May I was able to visit his restaurant while attending a conference in Helsinki and I really enjoyed the slow food.  It was even more interesting for me as they bake their own sourdough bread in the restaurant.

I think it is not so hard to pair herbs/spices. What I usually do is quite simple test: think about what I have on my hand and think what I would like to get and then I simply combine them and taste and if I am satisfied with the combination then I continue to determine the right mixing ratio. For years I was amazed by a combination I heard: vanilla ice cream and pumpkin seed oil - unbelievable but a great combination. There are no limits, just use your imagination!

Happy baking Hester!

Joze

 

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

the crumb looks. For some reason I thought that it would have been much heavier. Looks delicious!

joc1954's picture
joc1954

Danni, you have to try it :-)

Happy baking Danni!

Joze

 

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

And a lovely squash too!  (you wouldn't want to cook with a pumpkin)  

I just love the colour!  

joc1954's picture
joc1954

I was googling and found both terms and then decided to use pumpkin, but would be better if I would use squash.  In my native language we don't have that distinction and we call all of them just pumpkins.

Thanks for your comment and happy baking, Mini Oven!

P.S. About two weeks ago I was piloting from Hamburg to Slovenia and was overflying Linz and I remembered at that time that this is your home town.

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Great Bake!  That crumb looks perfect and nice and soft and flavorful.

joc1954's picture
joc1954

You have to try it, it is a simple recipe! actually I was inspired by your "Butternut Squash Spelt WW Bread" to make this bread. I hope I will inspire you as well :-)

Happy baking!

Joze

 

Yippee's picture
Yippee

The colors of your breads are so appealing that they give me the impulse to make one, too!  But at this moment I can't.  Still, it's great pleasure to just sit back and enjoy the beautiful, romantic colors of Fall that you've shared with us.  Nice post!

Happy Baking!

Yippee

joc1954's picture
joc1954

Yippee, the fall will we around for some time and these plants you can get for almost all year around so you can always try this later. I am sure you will enjoy the taste of this bread!

Happy baking Yippee!

Joze

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

of all kinds and one of my favorite herbs for bread especially rye bread. I love this recipe and using the squash seeds is a nice touch.  This one looks grand inside and out and perfect for Thanksgiving - this too would make some fine rolls too.  Well done an happy baking Joze

joc1954's picture
joc1954

for your comment and I am really glad that you like sage as a nice pairing for the squash. I agree that this kind of bread is just perfect for Thanksgiving.

Happy baking DAB.

Joze

PalwithnoovenP's picture
PalwithnoovenP

The crumb looks so inviting. Me too, I would never think of sage and pumpkin.

First time to see a Hokkaido pumpkin, it looks like a giant onion or pomegranate!

joc1954's picture
joc1954

Hokkaido squash or pumpkin, they are really interesting ingredient. When you touch it and try to peel it the skin looks so hard. But when you put them in the skillet they are very quickly very soft and have great taste and give so much color to the dish. I always use the skin (I just remove those parts of the skin which don't look nice). The soup made from them is awesome. You just need to add a little bit of cinnamon, some sage leaves and a little bit of ginger and you are the winner! You have to pair it with some warm spices, but don't add to much as you may kill the taste of pumpkin. 

Thanks for your comment and happy baking!

Joze

 

 

SourdoughSavant's picture
SourdoughSavant

I'm not familiar with yeast water - obviously, it's something I need to check out. But you say I can make this bread without it (which I really want to do - looks amazing!).  So - if I do so, what would I substitute for the 200g YW in the recipe? Just regular water? Seems like just leaving out 200g of anything would really change the dough consistency. thanks!

joc1954's picture
joc1954

You can just add more sourdough starter at 100% hydration - so 200 grams more starter.

Happy baking!

Joze

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

It looks great inside and out and the yellow color is refreshing!.The seeds were a nice addition.  Well done all the way around Joze and happy baking!

joc1954's picture
joc1954

Thanks Dab. This year I have slightly twisted the recipe and I make puree as well but instead of adding it later on I use it instead of water for the main dough. Depends on the way how you prepare puree but it contains about 80-90% of water so it is easy to adjust the a mount of water later on when adding salt.

Happy baking Dab,

Joze