Pumpkin Buns Recipe

Pumpkin Buns

These buns are based on Canadian Living's "Crusty Crown Loaf". The turmeric, cinnamon, and pumpkin provides a great twist for Thanksgiving, Halloween, a Harry Potter party, or really any celebration of Fall. 

Ingredients
Pinch        granulated sugar
3/4 cup     warm water
2 1/2 tsp   active dry yeast
3/4 cup     warm milk
1/4 cup     olive oil 
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour (approximately)
2 tsp          salt
1/2 cup      pumpkin or squash purée
1 Tbsp       turmeric
1 tsp          cinnamon 

- In large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle in yeast; let stand until frothy, about 10 minutes. Stir in warm milk, olive oil, and pumpkin purée. Stir in 3 3/4 cups of the flour, the salt, the turmeric, and the cinnamon, to form a shaggy, moist dough. 

- Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Knead, dusting with as much of the remaining flour as necessary to prevent sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. For into ball; place into greased bowl, turning to grease all over. Cover with plastic wrap; let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.

- Grease two rimless baking sheets; set aside.

- Punch down dough. Divide into 8 pieces for large pumpkin buns or 16 pieces for small pumpkin buns. Shape each into a ball, stretching and pinching the dough underneath to smooth tops; place, seam side down, on prepared pans. Cover with a damp tea towel; let rise in warm place until not quite doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

- Preheat oven to 400 degree F.

- With a sharp knife (the sharper, the better) score each bun vertically 8 times, to make the bun have "ridges" like a pumpkin. 

- Whisk one egg with 1 Tbsp water; Brush mixture over rolls.

- Score 8 pecans lengthwise and stick the pecan half into the pumpkin bun (to look like the stem). 

- Bake in centre of 400 degree F oven until golden and rolls sound hollow when tapped on bottoms, about 20 minutes for small buns, 25 minutes for large buns. Transfer to rack; let cool. 

Close Encouters of a Poultry Kind

September was a month of juxtapositions in Saskatoon. First, we endured a cold snap that had me rushing to tuck away my summer dresses and pull out my boots, scarves, and mittens. Next, the weather warmed up to well over 20 degrees for the next little while. Our nights are cold, but we're routinely having warm afternoons. During the cold snap I applauded myself for rushing out to the garden and dealing with the vegetables immediately (as in, harvesting the last bits and then pulling them out of the ground, prepping the beds for winter) but then I felt pretty silly, as it heated up again so soon. If I had tucked the vegetables in at night with a blanket and a bedtime story, then perhaps we would have been able to eat some home grown eggplants at our Thanksgiving dinner! 

Alas, I was too hasty in my drive to prepare for winter. Ever since we arrived here last June, I've had a constant refrain in my head: Winter is coming. Whenever I talk to someone about how I'm from Victoria, they first chuckle, then they tell me that the winter is really not that bad, and finally they add, "But make sure you buy a good parka." On the bright side, we do get an awful lot of sunshine hours on the prairies - Saskatoon's motto is "Saskatoon Shines!" after all. 

Nonetheless, I've gotten winter tires installed on both of our cars, I've dug out my merino wool base layers, and I've purchased a down parka. The parka is really cool, as it is a "shape shifter" - it has built in mittens and a face shield. This will be good when I am called out to sub at a school and have to do recess duty at minus 20 degrees. (Recess is only cancelled when the temperature and wind chill are colder than minus 30. School is cancelled with the combined temperature and wind chill are colder than minus 40.)

The kids went back to school here in Saskatoon (and they're back in BC too now, hooray!) but I didn't go back right away. I'm on the sub list for the Prairie Spirit School Division, but haven't had many calls yet. I've been spending a lot of time at Warman Elementary and really enjoying the one-to-one time that I get to spend with the students as a reading tutor. I begin my Special Ed Diploma in January, so perhaps one day in the not so distant future I will be working a Learning Assistance/Special Ed teacher! 

We had a lovely Thanksgiving here this past weekend. I did the full traditional meal, with cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, and brussell sproats, with the substitution of a chicken for the turkey. We had a resident friend (also from Victoria) over for Thanksgiving dinner and had a great time eating too much whipped cream and pumpkin pie! Luckily it was beautiful, warm and sunny on Sunday, so James and I went for a long bike ride along the river, up the Meewasin Valley Trail, hopefully burning off some of that whipped cream! On Thanksgiving Monday we had some friends over for lunch and had the requisite chicken soup, cranberry-chicken salad sandwiches, and pumpkin shaped buns. Delicious! 

Here are a few pictures of our Thankgiving food adventures. Sadly I forgot to bring my phone along for our bike ride so we couldn't partake in the picture taking extravaganza that everyone else and their dog was doing. It made for an interesting swerving course on the bicycles in any case! 

Thanksgiving Dinner, with all the trimmings!

 Pumpkin Buns - I'll post the recipe soon, I promise!