Spiced Pumpkin Bread

Spiced Pumpkin Bread
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Old-Fashioned Home Baking

I love this time of year, excuse to use loads of pumpkin. That is, in my case, butternut squash, since I'm a big cheat. However, I still believe firmly that it tastes nicer than pumpkin. This makes 1 ring of bread (bundt pan) or two loaves.

Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour (the original recipe uses all white flour)
1/4 cup wheat germ (you can omit this if you want or don't have it)
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon (shoulda added more)
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup pumpkin/butternut squash fresh or canned puree
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs (I used 3 medium eggs)
1/3 cup shortening (I suppose you could use butter if you wanted to)

1 cup of either dried berries, nuts, raisins, or seeds like pepitas (I used a prepacked mix of sunflower seeds, pepitas, cranberries and goji berries from Aldi)

Directions

Preheat oven to 175C/350F

In a mixing bowl (or the bowl of your mixer) mixed half the flour (1/2 cup WW flour, 1/2 cup AP flour), baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices.

Add pumpkin, milk, eggs, vanilla and shortening. Use mixer and beat 30 seconds to mix and a couple minutes on high.
Stir in nuts/seeds/dried fruit.

Bake for 1 hour for a ring mold/bundt like I used, or 45 minutes for two loaf pans.

You can make a glaze with a bit of powdered sugar and water, and a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, or just do what I plan to do, which is slice it up and smear it with butter or cream cheese. I plan on making french toast with a few slices for my breakfast, yum!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

So, I know its summer and all and making a pumpkin anything is a bit taboo, but hell, sometimes we want it, don't we? I'm 6 months pregnant, and even though I'm fighting a chest infection and have no appetite, I wanted to make these babies. You'll want to make them, too.

told ya.

Now, first a note. I'm in Ireland and I know some of my reader's won't have access to canned pumpkin. I simply roast up a butternut squash. Same taste-- some would argue its even nicer than pumpkin. Most canned pumpkin, you'll be interested to know, is actually squash anyways. Simply cut your squash in half, and cut each half in half (that's four pieces)-- scoop out the seeds and place flesh down in a pan. Fill that pan with 1/2 inch of water. Put it in your oven, HOT. I'm talking 400F/200C or so. Cook for 30-45 minutes (until the skin starts to brown and pucker a bit). Then you scoop out the innards, voila, you have your pumpkin/squash. You'll want 1/2 cup of that so you'll have lots left over for a nice bowl of soup or some muffins.

The Rolls
Dough Ingredients
1/3 cup milk
2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup pumpkin (canned or fresh) or butternut squash
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg, beaten
1 package active yeast
3 ounces (or 2-3 packages) of instant vanilla pudding/custard

1 1/2 cup plain flour
1 1/2 cup bread (or strong) flour


Filling Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp margarine

Directions
Heat milk and butter in a saucepan until the butter has melted, remove from heat.

Mix pumpkin/squash, salt and sugar.
Add in vanilla pudding/custard powder
Add in milk/butter
Add beaten egg
Mix in yeast

Sift flours
Slowly add flours to your mixture to form a dough.

Leave this to rise in a greased bowl in a warm place for about an hour.

Roll dough into a rectangle however thick you like, mine ends up a little less than 2 ft long by 12 inches.

Take your butter and margarine (I'll be honest, I don't measure this out I just take a small handful of each, but the estimate is probably close. You can't really have too much. Margarine will help keep the filling gooey as butter will be somewhat absorbed into the dough as it cooks) and smears it all over the dough. I use my hands. Get messy. Then I use the butter/margarine on my hands to grease my pan.
Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle all over the dough.

Now roll the dough up longways to make more rolls (if that makes sense). I use a piece of string to cut the rolls so they don't smush down, but of course you can use a knife-- about 1 inch thick.

Place them in your greased pan and allow to rise for 30 minutes. You'll get maybe a bit more than 12 rolls.

Bake at 350F/180C for 20 minutes.

Cream Cheese Icing
Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, room temp
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered/icing sugar, sifted
dash of lemon juice, optional but helps lift that tang!

Directions
Mix butter, vanilla and cream cheese... and lemon juice if you want.
Slowly add in powdered/icing sugar, add more if you want a thicker icing. This will be glaze like.

Smear all over the hot, delicious pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

Devour them.