Pumpkin yeast buns: soft, golden, made with Hokkaido purée, shaped like little pumpkins
Autumn yeast buns in which pumpkin gives colour, moisture and a gentle sweetness rather than a strong taste: even children who 'don't eat pumpkin' ask for a second. Hokkaido purée replaces part of the liquid, so the dough is as soft as challah and stays fresh for days. Plain balls, or for effect, balls tied with string into pumpkin shapes with a seed for the stalk.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Pumpkin: cooking and cooling 35 min
- Kneading 15 min
- Rising 60 min
- Shaping 15 min
- Rising 40 min
- Baking 20 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneCook and mash the pumpkin
Wash the pumpkin, scoop out the seeds, cut into cubes with the skin on (Hokkaido needs no peeling) and steam, or cook covered in 2 cm of water, 15 minutes until soft. Drain thoroughly, mash with a fork or blend into a smooth purée and cool to lukewarm. You need about 300 g.
Ingredients: 400 g Hokkaido pumpkin · 500 g plain flour · 100 ml milk · 20 g fresh yeast · 40 g sugar · 1 pcs egg · 60 g butter · 1 tsp salt
TipThe purée should be thick, not watery. If the pumpkin gave off a lot of water, dry the purée 2–3 minutes in a pan, stirring. Wet purée means adding flour and heavier buns.
Thick purée, cooled, 300 gKnead the dough
While the purée cools, cream the yeast with a spoon of sugar and the lukewarm milk and leave 10 minutes until frothy. Add to the flour with the salt and remaining sugar, along with the pumpkin purée and the egg. Knead 8 minutes with dough hooks (about 12 by hand), then add the butter and knead another 4 minutes, until smooth, elastic and only slightly tacky.
TipPumpkin dough is naturally stickier than plain yeast dough. Instead of adding flour, knead longer: after a few minutes it starts to come away from your hand.
Orange, smooth, slightly tackyFirst rise
Shape the dough into a ball, put it in an oiled bowl, cover and leave 60 minutes somewhere warm, until doubled.
Doubled, an orange domeShape the buns
Knock back, divide into 12 pieces of about 90 g and round each into a taut ball. Plain buns: set on a lined tray with space between. Pumpkins: tie each ball loosely with four loops of kitchen string (like a parcel) to make 8 segments; the string must sit loose, because the bun grows and nestles into it by itself.
TipString oiled before tying comes out easily after baking. Buns tied too tight split along the string.
90 g balls, string loose, four loopsSecond rise and glaze
Cover and leave 40 minutes, until grown by half. Heat the oven to 180 °C. Brush the buns with beaten egg and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds (leave the pumpkin-shaped ones without seeds; the stalk comes later).
Ingredients: 1 pcs egg for glazing · 3 tbsp pumpkin seeds
Egg on top, pumpkin seedsBake
Bake 18–20 minutes, until golden brown and hollow-sounding underneath. Cool on a rack 10 minutes, snip and gently pull out the strings, press a pumpkin seed into the centre of each pumpkin as a stalk.
Golden, string out, a seed for the stalk
Before you start
Filled
A teaspoon of sweetened curd cheese or plum butter inside each ball: pumpkin buns with a surprise, for breakfast and lunchboxes.
Savoury
Cut the sugar to a spoon, add a teaspoon of caraway and 50 g grated cheese to the dough. For pumpkin soup and garlic butter.
Other pumpkins
Butternut or a large field pumpkin work too, but peel them and dry the purée longer after cooking: they hold more water than Hokkaido.
