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Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Two Tone Pumpkin Bread - #BreadBakers


Let's talk pumpkin.

I know that I mentioned before that pumpkin is an all year round vegetable (yes, yes, I know it's really a fruit) in Jamaica. It's the base of most of our soups and a Saturday without a pot of soup bubbling on the stove is unpatriotic. Pumpkin rice is also a favourite of mine. What I never mentioned then was that our pumpkin is a wee bit different from North American pumpkin. Honestly, I just never thought about it much. Someone brought it up to me when I mentioned that I needed to come up with a pumpkin bread for this month's Bread Bakers. Did I have a plan for addressing the differences? "Oh, yeah...hmm," was my response.

So how is it different? The most obvious difference is the skin. North American pumpkin is orange on the outside while ours is green. A better blogger would have had a picture of a perfect slice of pumpkin or even a whole one to show you. But remember that I said that I just never thought about it.  I do have a tiny piece though so here you go:


I won't even admit to you how many years it took for it to dawn on me that we had green pumpkins and the once I saw in the US were orange. Maybe it's because I always reached for "calabaza" in the supermarket? Let me stop making excuses for my non-observant ways. Moving along.

You can see that the flesh is still that really bright orange like the North American variety. It actually got a bit darker after cooking. The flesh is really sweet. After tasting nothing but the North American version for years, I was actually surprised by how sweet this was. The last time that I tasted canned pumpkin, I actually spat it out. Quite bland to me. I remember wondering why it tasted so bland when I grew up eating steamed pumpkin on a weekly basis and at no point did it ever taste like that. Different varieties, Kelly. Different varieties.



I am actually looking forward to using this pumpkin in sweet applications. I was always on the fence about that before. I do wish that I could get some canned pumpkin to do some comparisons. Ah well. For today, I have a two toned pumpkin bread. It's a pretty simple bread even though it does require making two separate doughs. Both are pretty straightforward and come together pretty quickly.


As always, be sure to check out all the other Bread Bakers below. Thanks to Kylee for hosting!




Two - Toned Pumpkin Bread
adapted from Bake with Paws

Ingredients
White Dough
250 grams flour
35 grams granulated sugar
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
100 ml milk
50 grams oil
1 egg yolk

Pumpkin Dough
200 grams flour
20 grams sugar
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
125 grams cooked and pureed pumpkin (see notes)
30 grams oil
1 egg yolk
milk as needed (see notes)


Directions
Combine all the ingredients for the white dough. Knead until you form a smooth, cohesive dough that is slightly tacky. Set the dough aside to rise until doubled.

Combine all the ingredients except milk for the pumpkin dough. Knead until you form a smooth, cohesive but tacky dough. If the dough is dry, add milk by the teaspoon. If it's too wet, add a little flour. Set the dough aside to rise until doubled.

Grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan.

When both doughs are ready, roll out the white dough on a lightly floured surface. I rolled to approximately 9" x 7".  Brush the dough with water. Roll out the pumpkin dough and place on top of the white dough. Tightly roll up the dough along the shorter side.

Place the log in the greased loaf pan with the seam side down. Allow to rise at room temperature until doubled.

Before the dough is doubled, preheat the oven to 350 F.

Bake the loaf for 30 minutes or until a thermometer registers approximately 200 F. Cool before slicing.

Notes
Since I cooked my own pumpkin, and also due to the difference in variety, the water content may be vastly different from yours. Don't add any milk to the pumpkin dough until you have combined the other ingredients and determined if you need it. I did not need additional milk.




BreadBakers

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. Follow our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated each month on this home page.

We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient.
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11 comments:

  1. What a pretty two-tone pumpkin bread. Looks awesome.

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  2. SO skillfully made! This is an eye-catching bread and I imagine even nicer to eat than to look at!

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  3. I love the two tones here! I want to stuff it full of ham and cheese and have a sandwich!

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  4. This is very cool, and I love that you explained the differences in the pumpkins!

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  5. Such a wonderfully swirled bread you got there!!

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  6. I love your two tone bread, looks so pretty. We too get green skinned pumpkin in Kenya and sometimes its got streaks of orange and green. Mostly, the flesh is sweet.

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  7. The crust is perfect. The inside is the fluffiest of all the pumpkin bread. It tastes amazing.

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