Pumpkin Bread

I feel like the name of this post is a bit of a misnomer, but I assure you that I am not trying to trick you. This is indeed a post for pumpkin bread, just not the pumpkin fruit bread that may come to mind. Pumpkin, being the amazingly versatile gourd that it is, can easily take the place of water in the majority of recipes for bread with fantastic results. The bread produced is slightly heavier but much moister and even better - it retains that moisture over a fair amount of time. White bread is especially notorious for drying out quickly, so it works best in those recipes. Surprisingly, the pumpkin has very little effect upon the flavor of the bread. If that's good or bad I'll leave up to you. I'll give an example recipe below, subbing pumpkin in a simple french bread recipe:

Pumpkin White Bread

4 C Flour
1 1/2 t Salt
3 T Oil
1 pkg yeast (I don't know if I mentioned this before but the only safe yeast I know of is Red Star in the individual packets)
2 T Pure Maple Syrup
1/3 C Warm Water, 110-115 degrees
≈1+ C Pumpkin Puree

Mix yeast, warm water, and maple syrup. If your maple syrup is kept in the fridge, you'll want to warm that up as well or your yeast will never activate. Mix is ready when it is bubbly (foamy).

Mix flour, salt, and oil together. Add yeast mixture. mix well. Add in the full cup of pumpkin puree. Work this into the bread by hand and see if the consistency is proper(you'll have to go with you gut on this one); add more pumpkin puree a bit at a time until the consistency is correct. Knead for 12-15 minutes. Grease bowl. Rub butter on dough, place in bowl, cover and allow to rise for 1 hour or until double in size. Punch down. allow to rest 5 minutes. Cut dough in half. Grease desired pan. Butter dough. allow to rise 1 hour or until double in size. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

If you wish to make your own pumpkin puree out of a seasonal pumpkin(I made it with cooked puree leftover from the real pumpkin pie we made, but if you get a pumpkin of the right size you could do both). Follow the steps to make you own puree:
1. Choose a small to medium size sugar pumpkin(they retain the sweetness the best) and wash the outside well, you're not peeling until after cooking.
2. Cut off the stem, scape out the guts(keeping the seeds*). Cut into pieces and put into a saucepan with a few inches of water.
3. Cook the pumpkin until it it is soft. Take out of the pot, let cool, and scape from the skin. The soft consistency will make this easy.
-You can also bake the whole or halved pumpkin in a 350˚F oven until it is fork-tender.
*Pumpkin seeds can be enjoyed raw or roasted and are an excellent form of plant based protein, zinc, and iron. They are so full of energy they were once rumored to be an aphrodisiac (and still are occasionally). I've also read they can be put straight into bread with good results as well(though I think you'd want to shell them first).

If you try this recipe out with a darker form of bread(wheat, rye, etc...), let me know how it turned out!