I admit, I caved into the recent trend of shaping bread as a pumpkin. Thanksgiving is right at the corner, and this bread would be perfect to celebrate the occasion. You can use any bread dough you like, but to keep with the seasonal atmosphere, some canned pumpkin puree found its way into my recipe. I kept hydration a bit lower, as I did not want the bread to expand too much. It was a wild experiment (got it? wild yeast involved), and I am a bit surprised that it worked so well on my first attempt. Beginner’s luck?
PUMPKIN SOURDOUGH
(from the Bewitching Kitchen, inspired by photos everywhere)
400 g bread flour
100 g spelt flour
300 g water
120 g canned pumpkin puree
120 g active sourdough starter
12 g fine sea salt
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, no need to make it very smooth at this point. Just form a shaggy mixture and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes.
Ferment the dough for 4 hours at room temperature, folding a few times during this period. I did 4 cycles of folding, at about 45 min intervals, allowing the dough to rest untouched after the 4th folding cycle. Shape it as a ball, place in a well-floured banetton and leave it in the fridge overnight.
Next day, place pieces of kitchen twine as shown in the composed picture over parchment paper. Grease the kitchen twine slightly so it won’t glue to the bread. Place the bread on top, seam side down, and cover it slightly with flour, rubbing it with your hands to form a nice coating. Tie the twine around it to form the wedges of a pumpkin. If desired, add a pattern with a very sharp razor blade, held in your fingers (be careful).
Immediately place the shaped bread in a Dutch oven, cover it, and place into a 450 F oven for 30 minutes. Uncover, and bake for 15 minutes more, until golden brown. Let it cool completely, remove the twine, and slice.
ENJOY!
to print the recipe, click here
Comments: This bread was a complete impulse bake. I need to tell you a little secret, though. I was contacted by our newspaper in town to be part of their Monday feature called “Our Neighbors.” They feature someone in town that does something cool, or special, or fun. And for some reason they thought that a scientist who works with bacteria at KSU during the day and blogs on the side, could be featured. They stopped at home to take pictures and I quickly assembled this dough, having refreshed my Star starter in the morning. You know, the ultra-active starter I got from my friend Elaine. They took a ton of pictures of me kneading the dough, I was hoping they would include one in the article, but they picked a different one, in which my pumpkin bread dough is already covered for its final fermentation.
If you like to read the article, click here. If the link is blocked where you live, click page 1 and page 2 for PDF versions.
But back to bread. This was so easy to shape, main thing is to make sure the strings stay put where you want them as you move the bread to the Dutch oven. Since I use a cold pot, it’s easier to go back inside and tweak the twine (I was really hoping to use this phrase). The pumpkin flavor is not evident, you won’t say it’s pumpkin, but it gives the sourdough a softer texture (crumb included) and a sweeter taste, a lot of the sourdough character will be toned down. We really liked it.
I hope you give this bread a try. Evidently, no need to use a sourdough, any formula will work, just adapt the fermentation time and go for it. You can also use roasted pumpkin made from scratch. Honestly, I don’t know how that will compare with canned pumpkin in terms of hydration. I prefer to use canned because it’s pretty reproducible, but I am sure the bread tolerates a certain range of hydration values without too many issues. Worth experimenting with. It’s just a little flour, water, and yeast, after all…
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That is the most beautiful bread I ever saw and I’ve not seen twine used before. What a great idea! Congratulations on being shown in the paper. I hope you get more people subscribing to your blog. We don’t get canned pumpkin in the supermarkets in Australia. Wish we did.
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That is the cutest and most perfect looking bread I have ever seen!
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Oh, it’s beautiful!
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I love it I love it I love it!!! It’s so pretty! And thank you for including me and Star x x x
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What a cool way to shape bread miss famous!!
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Wow really nice and awesome recipe with full of nutrients. Many Thanks for posting this recipe, I will must try to home. As a Nutritionist I appreciate this recipe with all healthy ingredients.
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Amazing!
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This looks delicious
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Your website is unreadable.
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In 11 years you are the first to say that…. Should I worry? Nah, I don’t think so, I am doing fine….
have a wonderful weekend
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by the way, thanks for the laugh… 😉
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Hello! Your pumpkin boule is beautiful! I am going to try this today, but I have a question (more of a clarification). I also use Elaine’s method for making sourdough boules, so I’m wondering about the part where you didn’t touch the dough again after the 4th folding. You said you shape it into a ball immediately after the 4th folding, is that right? And then put it in the banneton and into the fridge overnight? Did this affect the oven spring at all, since you skipped the overnight room temperature rise? I am so curious to know! Thank you so much in advance!
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Hi, exactly – I always leave the dough shaped in the fridge overnight, that’s my preferred method – if leaving it overnight at room temp I then need to refrigerate the dough for several hours to tighten it up and then bake. Particularly when I do scoring, I like it super tight from the fridge and this method suits my goals better. I can bake first thing in the morning, straight from the fridge, with a quick scoring if I so desire.
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Truly appreciate the way you made this wonderful pumpkin sourdough. Everything is nicely described that really helped me.
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So glad it worked well for you1 It is a wonderful bread, I must make it again soon…. it’s that time of the year! 😉
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