Bread machine dough, oven bake - Help Please

[HeadNinja]

On Proofing in the pan, there are couple tricks you can do in a cold house. The first is to Microwave a coffee cup full of water for a couple minutes, then put the pan in the microwave and shut the door. This gets you high humidty and reasonable heat. A sort of bread sauna.

The other is to take a tea towel, put it water you can barely stand to touch because it is so damn hot, wring it out and lay it over the pan. This does not work quite as well as the microwave, but if you don’t have a microwave you at least have a plan B.

[congodwarf]

I made the King Arthur pumpkin bread today. I made it without the machine, which was a first for me. I also made it free-form.

It came out looking beautiful, with a very good texture. But, it still tastes like white bread with a hint of pumpkin/cinnamon flavor. It’s very good but my ultimate goal is much more sweet and this wasn’t. I’ll be doing some experimenting, methinks.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

@Mangetout

@congodwarf

1&3. Hmm. I definitely don’t need a new pan. I don’t think I have cornmeal. I’ll give the oil/flour method a try for the next one. I do have a glass pan but I prefer lighter crust so for now I’ll stick with the metal one. I’ll also attempt to restrain myself from removing it from the pan before it’s cooled.

Alternatively, you could just form the dough into a round ball and bake it on a cookie sheet (letting it double in size before baking). Obviously you’ll get a round loaf - not so convenient for slicing, but it will be nice.

People make round loaves on purpose, to serve as a serving bowl (hollowed out, of course) for soup or dip. These are quite attractive, but if I’m going to bake bread, I’d certainly want to eat all of it.

[Musicat]

@congodwarf

I made the King Arthur pumpkin bread today. I made it without the machine, which was a first for me. I also made it free-form.

It came out looking beautiful, with a very good texture. But, it still tastes like white bread with a hint of pumpkin/cinnamon flavor. It’s very good but my ultimate goal is much more sweet and this wasn’t. I’ll be doing some experimenting, methinks.

You could add more pumpkin (or try some artificial flavor), but you’ll have to compensate for the extra bulk somehow or it won’t rise enough and it will be more like a muffin than a bread. Maybe that’s what you want?

[congodwarf]

I want the flavor of a muffin with the texture of risen bread. It’s not a tragedy if it doesn’t happen but it would make me happy if it did.

[Sigmagirl]

I suggest you try making it in the style of cinnamon bread. Make the pumpkin bread as you did, roll the dough out in a rectangle the size of your bread pan, and sprinkle it with sugar mixed with cinnamon and nutmeg and the other spices you’d use in a pumpkin pie. Roll it back up and let it rise as usual. Use this technique. That gets you the pumpkin dough and the spicy flavor.

[Hello_Again]

@congodwarf

I want the flavor of a muffin with the texture of risen bread. It’s not a tragedy if it doesn’t happen but it would make me happy if it did.

A heck of a lot of the flavor of a muffin comes from sugar. Without the sweetness, the pumpkin doesn’t taste that strong (pumpkin is pretty bland). Since you can’t get the bready texture with all that sugar, try using more spices than are in that King Arthur recipe. I would use at least as much spices as you’d use in pumpkin pie - traditionally 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp cloves – and think about adding more than that, since the volume is greater. (are your spices fresh, btw?)