Making this bread is a delight because the dough is so soft, elastic, and sensual. It gets its delicate hue and incredibly subtle flavor from pumpkin. It’s a fantastic country loaf.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 50 mins |
| Additional Time: | 13 hrs 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 14 hrs 40 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 loaf |
Ingredients
- ½ cup pure pumpkin puree
- 1 cup warm water (100 degrees F/40 degrees C)
- 1 tablespoon warm water (100 degrees F/40 degrees C)
- 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
- ¼ teaspoon active dry yeast
- 1 tiny pinch pumpkin pie spice
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cornmeal, or as needed
Instructions
- Place pumpkin puree into a large mixing bowl and whisk in 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon warm water, salt, yeast, and pumpkin pie spice until thoroughly combined. Beat in flour to make a dry crumbly dough. Keep stirring until dough becomes smooth and sticky, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Cover bowl with a damp towel and let dough stand 12 to 16 hours to rise.
- Generously sprinkle cornmeal onto center area of a baking sheet. Scrape dough out of bowl, using a floured spatula, onto a heavily floured work surface. Dough will be very sticky. Dust dough with flour and gently flatten into an oblong shape. Fold 2 opposite rounded ends together to meet in the center; fold remaining 2 rounded ends to meet in the center, creating a rectangle of dough. Using well-floured hands, gently form into a round loaf with the seams on the bottom.
- Transfer dough round onto center of prepared baking sheet. Dust top and sides of loaf generously with more flour.
- Dust a dry towel with flour and place towel with floured side down over loaf. Let rise until loaf has almost doubled in size, 1 1/2 hours. Use a sharp knife to cut a 1/2-inch deep slit across the top of the loaf.
- Place a loaf pan containing about 2 inches of water onto a bottom rack of oven. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
- Bake on center rack of the preheated oven for 30 minutes; turn bread around in oven. Continue to bake until bread is golden brown and crusty, about 20 more minutes. Let bread cool completely on a rack before slicing.
- To make plain bread, substitute water for pumpkin and omit pumpkin pie spice.
Reviews
For many years I was terrified of making homemade bread other than my bread maker. I decided to try this based on how easy the video made it look. It didn’t lie,,its sooooo simple. The taste is fantastic . Reminds me of Chibata bread. I already have requests from hubby to make it again!
This bread is delicious! Crispy crust and tender on the inside. We tried to make white bread with the instructions, but it was too watery and we had to add more flour. Will make both kinds again!
Did not change anything, perfect, love, love it. I shall be making this often. Thank you for sharing this great bread recipe
Made this for Thanksgiving, everyone really loved it it didn’t actually make it to Dinner everyone ate it. Followed the video no changes, except I let it rise a bout 24 hours just because I made the dough at home before traveling . Very good will make it again.
Great
yummy bread!
Bread is tough on the outside and sticky on the inside. Will never make again.
Delicious, rustic bread reci pe. The pumpkin puree adds to wonderful heartiness of the bread.
Lovely crust and chewy inside. This was so very easy to make and it was delicious. I doubled the pumpkin and it had a slight pumpkin flavor.
It’s a very good bread, but has little flavor of pumpkin. It will go great with all the Fall soups!
very easy and very good
Delicious and easy to make. I must admit, however, I didn’t read the recipe closely enough before I started and was therefore surprised to see it had to rise 12-16 hours. So, based on the time I started the recipe I would have to bake the bread at 3 in the morning. Since no way that was going to happen I let it rise a total of 19 hours and baked it at 8 the next morning. It was still a delicious loaf that my family enjoyed eating with homemade soup.
Loved the ease of this bread – nice crisp crust
Just had my first piece and its amazing….. reminds me of good old German bread. its well worth the time and effort!
By far, the easiest, and most fool-proof bread we’ve ever made. We’ve tried various recipes but always come back to this one. Now we just have to figure out a way to get some whole grains into it and have it come out just as perfect!
This is a fantastic bread. I used 2-1/2 cups white flour and 1/2 cup oat bran and it was simply delicious!!!
This is the perfect bread for the busy holidays because it takes very little effort to put together the day before. The next morning simply shape it, let it rise, and bake. The bread has wonderful flavor and texture. This recipe is also listed on this website as Chef John’s Pumpkin Bread.