Alternative Pumpkin Bread

On Friday night I went to a gig by entertaining local band the Seventy, who those of you who follow this blog regularly will know I have mentioned before. The gig on Friday night was the fourth time I have seen them and it was a Halloween themed gig with the band, the two who supported them and the majority of the members of the audience wearing Halloween fancy dress. In keeping with the Halloween theme the band opened with a rocked up version of Ray Parker Junior's 1984 hit Ghostbusters which worked a treat and the remainder of the set was of a similarly high quality. It was also an opportunity for catching up with a wide range of people and doing plenty of dancing.

As a result of my adventures at the gig I decided to make something suitably Halloween themed and what better example of Halloween than something with Pumpkin in the recipe? The choice was some Pumpkin Bread. When people think of Pumpkin Bread they tend to think of the sweet dish from the United States, which is usually more like the equivalent of a fruit loaf as we would call it this side of the pond, in terms of the ingredients used to make it. However my dish was a savoury dish that was designed to go with some Pumpkin and Chili Soup I had prepared earlier.

The soundtrack to the cooking was the Rolling Stones' flawless 1971 offering 'Sticky Fingers' which contains the evergreen hit 'Brown Sugar' the underrated and epic heavy rock of 'Sway' the genuine country of 'Wild Horses' and the sophisticated and reflective closer 'Moonlight Mile' among its track list.

I first poured a pound of white bread flour into my mixing bowl together with a sachet of easy blend yeast and mixed the ingredients together. I then left the bowl on one side and took six ounces of flesh from a pumpkin the size of a football and fried it with the leaves from three sprigs of Rosemary from the garden. After lightly frying the Pumpkin and Rosemary  with a teaspoon of Nutmeg for around twenty minutes, by which time the Pumpkin flesh was soft enough to cut with the edge of a tablespoon, I turned the heat off the hob and left the pan with the Pumpkin and Rosemary in on the side to cool.

Next I added a quarter of a pint of milk to the flour and yeast and stirred it in until the flour and yeast had absorbed the milk. I then added the Pumpkin and Rosemary to the bowl and kneaded it into the flour, yeast and milk until a soft dough was formed. In order to ensure the dough was dry enough to be cooked I added a couple of tablespoons of flour to it and kneaded them into the dough.

I then found the warmest place in the house and left the dough in a mixing bowl there to rise for an hour. After it had risen I put it on a greased baking tray and cooked in the oven at 180 degrees (190 degrees for non-fan ovens) for half an hour. After taking it out of the oven I left it to cool on a wire rack and then served it with the Pumpkin and Chili Soup. The presence of the soft Pumpkin flesh in the bread made it quite moist while the Rosemary and Nutmeg helped liven the taste of what would have otherwise been a bland bread if I had only put Pumpkin in with the dough. This bread proved that Pumpkin Bread doesn't just have to be a sweet dish to have as a pudding.

Straight out of the oven and cooling down

All sliced up and ready to eat- on this occasion with Chili and Pumpkin Soup