Here in New Mexico it feels like it went straight from ‘heat of the Summer’ to ‘middle of Fall’ overnight. In addition to roasting green chile and hot air balloons, the Fall always makes me think of pumpkins. I had a little bit of pumpkin puree left over and decided to put some, along with pecans, in a bread.

Schedule: I based this loaf off of my bakers yeast schedule.

Ingredients:

Dough

This being the first time using pumpkin puree, I really wasn’t sure how much to add. Next time I’ll add more.

• 500g bread flour
• 390g filtered water
• 75g canned pumpkin puree (no spices)
• 75g chopped pecans
• 11g sea salt
• 2g bakers yeast

Method:

I started with a 30 minute autolyse with all of the flours and the water.

After mixing the dough, I performed 4 stretch and folds within the first 90 minutes, separated by 20 minutes. Bulk fermentation lasted for just shy of 5 hours.

I proofed for 45 minutes in a banneton before placing it in a dutch oven.

I baked the loaf in a preheated dutch oven at 450’F for 38 minutes covered, then removed the lid of the dutch oven and baked for an additional 15 minutes.

Result:

Having never used pumpkin puree in a bread before, I really wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out. Erring on the side of caution, I used 75g but probably should have doubled that. The puree gives the crumb a nice light yellow color but there isn’t really much pumpkin flavor that comes through.

The pecans are a really nice addition and give a great texture. They’re pretty well distributed throughout the loaf and actually taste almost identical to walnuts whenever I have them in bread. Next time I’ll stick with 75g as that seems to be the right amount.

Overall the bread will be really good with some apple butter or with toast.

My Baking Notes

• Ambient Temperature: 69’F
• Started autolyse @ 11:45am
• Water temp: 93’F
• Dough was 84’F at autolyse
• Mixed @ 12:25pm
• Dough was 78’F after mixing
• 4 stretch and folds over first 90 minutes
• Started proof @ 5:10pm
• Into oven @ 5:45pm