Pumpkin Sourdough Loaf
Ingredients
- 500g Canadian great white flour
- 50g active starter
- 325g water
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- Cooks string
- Board
- Scissors
- Olive oil to rub lightly on the string to avoid sticking
Method
- Mix your active starter with the water and stir them together.
- Next mix in the flour and the pumpkin purée and also the salt.
- Mix together loosely, just enough to get the flour and water mixed together.
- Cover the bowl with a plastic shower cap and leave on the counter for one hour.
- Then do lift and folds to bring it all together (about 25 ).
- Cover and leave on the kitchen counter and perform lift and folds over two hours (every 30 mins).
- Re-cover the bowl and leave on the counter overnight.
- Next morning it should have really grown within the bowl.
Get your banneton ready and liberally flour it with rice flour. Very gently perform one set of lifts and folds to bring the dough into a ball. Be careful at this stage so as not to spoil all the bubbles that have been created. Gently lift and place in your prepared banneton smooth side down. Add more rice flour down the sides and top of the dough. This will stop it from sticking to the parchment paper. Cover again with the plastic shower cap for at least 10 hours up to 24. You will need the dough firm enough for you to tie it with the string.
Making the pumpkin shape.
Get your string ready and cut to lengths making sure it’s long enough to tie your dough. Have a piece of parchment paper cut big enough to use to bake you pumpkin! Run just a small amount of oil on each strand of string.
Have a board or similar to use to turn your banneton over. When you have everything ready, preheat your oven to 220 fan.
Now place your string in position over your dough. When you have it where you want it to place the parchment paper on top then the board so you can turn it over ready to tie for your pumpkin shape. Then tie each piece of string individually, tight enough but with enough room for the bread to rise. When this is all finished score your pumpkin any way you want.
Then lift your dough carefully into your cold pan. Put the lid on and bake for 50 mins then remove from the oven and if it needs more colour place it back in the oven without the lid for another 5-10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and place your pumpkin sourdough on a rack to cool.
As soon as you can safely handle the bread carefully remove the string with scissors and leave it to cool completely for at least an hour. When mine was cool I put a piece of cinnamon in the middle. That’s it.. A pumpkin shaped sourdough!
Thank you to Elaine Boddy (@elaine_foodbod) for the original master recipe and Debi (@larderandlife) for this specific recipe with the pumpkin puree adaptation – just in time for Halloween!