TBP: Pumpkin Yeast Bread

The first Wednesday of every month is potluck at my bar (well, not mine per se, but I spend enough time there...). Though I've only been to two before this I seem to by default bring the desserts. First month was a tasty bread pudding using homemade brioche-ish bread, then the second was delicious nutella cookies.

This month I wanted to try some of the skills learned from my awesome Le Pan Quotidien bread class and stuff rolls with chocolate. As it's nearing Thanksgiving and I had leftover pumpkin from my vegan pumpkin cranberry walnut bread, so I looked up some seasonally appropriate recipes.

What turned up? This lovely King Athur Flour recipe. It came together reasonably well, though I tried to keep my dough on the sticky side so there were a few minor freakouts during the kneading process (I'm a bit rusty it seems).

The bread itself turned out delicious- I made a loaf and 14 or so rolls, which I stuffed with some bittersweet chocolate and butter. The final verdict though: needed more chocolate! Also a kitchen scale to help with the uneven (and slightly too big) roll sizes. Will definitely make again though.

The biggest breakthrough came once the rolls were done- the pumpkin flavor was very mild, especially with the chocolate inside, but it gave the bread a nice softness and light golden color. It reminded me of my attempts at potato bread. Well, they were more than attempts- tasty potato bread was, in fact, made- but I never got that orangeish/yellow bread I was looking for. Those breads must have sweet potato in them. Will have to make search for more recipes one of these days...

*FYI- the camera has been found! Expect posts with pictures soon!

The Bread Project: Vegan Pumpkin Quickbread with Cranberries and Walnuts

I have ten bags of cranberries in my fridge and freezer. No kidding. They were 49 cents a bag at the Target by me for some reason, so we stocked up. Some of them may be used for a beer D is in the planning stages of, but that still leaves at least five bags, probably more if they're still cheap next time I go. Clearly I have a problem. So expect a lot of cranberry-based posts while we work through it all.

We also had canned pumpkin which needed to be used, and the thought crossed my mind to make something vegan. So foodblogsearch.com searching commenced and turned up a recipe easily incorporating both.

Vegan Pumpkin Walnut Cranberry Bread and Muffins (slightly adapted from Joy the Baker)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/3 cups sugar
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• Scant 2 cups of pumpkin puree (canned or freshly roasted, if you're all fancy)
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup roughly chopped cranberries

Preheat your oven to 350. The usual muffin method- whisk the dry in one bowl, whisk the wet in another. Add dry to the wet. Stir a little. Add the walnuts and cranberries. Stir a little more. Try not to overmix.

I was able to get a smaller loaf and 18 muffins, though you could probably to a regular loaf and 12 muffins. Baked them together- the muffins were done in about 25 minutes, the loaf in about an hour. I probably took them out on the early side just to keep the bread moist, as I'd read sans eggs it can get a bit crumbly.

As is- super delicious. Next time I'll add more walnuts and cranberries though. You can probably even forgo telling people it's vegan, unless like me you have a vegan coworker who usually cannot partake in foods people bring in to work.

*Note: apologies for the lack of pictures. My camera has gone missing, and my cell phone's is just awful. Hopefully will find it soon! Or Black Friday's coming up so maybe I'll just get a new one.