made these as an experiment as I had some butternut squash puree left over from another recipe and now these Spiced Pumpkin Rolls are possibly one of my favourite things ever!
I love this style of enriched dough bun but often they have been covered in a thick layer of icing which I find over-sweet and which ruins the delicious spicing and rich, soft bun so I have just dusted them with some icing sugar. If you love that thick icing though slap some on!
Often yeast based cookery puts a lot of people off as they believe it’s time consuming. I just think you have to make the timings work for you and remember you can slow down the rise if you need to by popping the dough in the fridge for a while for the second prove. I work these buns around kids bedtime! I make the dough, which takes minutes, as the children are eating their dinner or straight after. Then leave it to rise in a warm place while I do their teeth, reading, stories, snuggles. The dough is ready to roll when this is done so I load it up and then leave it to rise for another hour or two until doubled in size and bake just before my bedtime. If I’m running late then it is just rolled out and popped into the fridge to go in the airing cupboard in the morning as soon as I get up meaning it’s warmed up and risen ready to cook as soon as I return from the school run. Which also means I get first dibs on these frankly amazing buns.
Don’t be put off by the length of this recipe, I promise it is easy and very much worth it. Can you tell how excited these buns make me!?!
Spiced Pumpkin Rolls
Ingredients
- For the Dough
- 80ml milk
- 30g unsalted butter
- 125g roasted, mashed squash or pumpkin (or plain tinned pumpkin)
- 45g dark muscovado brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
- 350g bread flour
- Filling
- 80g unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 80g dark muscovado sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- Also: butter and oil for greasing
Directions
- Step 1 Warm the milk and butter together over until the butter has only just melted – you don’t want the liquid to boil as it will be too hot and kill off the yeast.
- Step 2 Beat together the puree, sugar and nutmeg (I used an electric whisk). Gradually add the milk and butter mix. Beat in the eggs then the flour and yeast.
- Step 3 Place the finished dough into an oil greased bowl and rub a little on the top too so it doesn’t develop a hard skin or stick. Cover the bowl with cling film so it is not touching and has some growing room.
- Step 4 Leave to double in size in a warm place then knock the dough back and knead on a floured surface for about a minute.
- Step 5 Roll out the dough into a rectangle approx. 45cm x 25cm. Spread the soft butter over the whole area.
- Step 6 In a small bowl combine the sugar and spices then sprinkle evenly over the butter and dough.
- Step 7 Tightly roll the dough up starting the longest edge and rolling up to the longest edge opposite. You need to make the resulting sausage shape as long as possible.
- Step 8 Cut into to 12 equal size pieces and place in a butter greased oblong brownie tin, evenly spaced (you should end up with 4 rows of 3 buns).
- Step 9 Cover with plastic wrap and once again let the dough double in size. This takes about an hour but if you don’t have time you can pop them in the fridge until you are ready.
- Step 10 When the buns are risen, place in a preheat oven which is at 180°C / 350°F / Gas mark 4.
- Step 11 After 15mins in the oven cover with foil and cook for another 10mins.
- Step 12 Remove from the oven when cooked (the buns should spring back when you prod them) and cool a little before dusting with sugar.
