Alas, days off are my only days to bake, and usually my only days to update (today is an exception; I work the late shift and do not go into work until five. Yay?). Last Wednesday was pretty rainy and a day that I happened to have off, so I figured that trying out a new recipe was an excellent idea!
Pumpkin Pull-Apart bread. With butter rum glaze. Yes, it is every bit as delicious as it sounds.
Unfortunately, when I first started making this, things weren't going as well as they could have been. See, normally I experiment with new recipes and such when my mom is not home. For whatever reason, despite the fact that I am definitely capable in the kitchen, she is CONSTANTLY providing her input for certain recipes or methods of cooking. Sometimes it is helpful, but for the most part? Irritating. I am very much a "figure-it-out-for-myself" type person, so when people (including my mother) stick their noses in without me asking for help, I get annoyed. So this was a trying time, because not only was the dough sticky, but it had gone cold, so my mom was being a Debbie Downer. Fifteen minutes into the rising time, she insisted on checking it.
"It's not rising properly."
So I didn't bother taking pictures. If it was going to be a failure, so be it. I didn't want pictures to remind me of it. I was actually feeling somewhat embarrassed, because I am a person who generally has good luck when it comes to baking. My first yeast dough rose beautifully. I got feet on my french macarons first try. The only baking failure I've had in recent years was a cracked cheesecake, and even that was easily fixed with a bit of dark chocolate ganache.
I ended up leaving the dough for about 15 extra minutes, and it had risen the appropriate amount. Phew. My mom was still acting all doomsday about it, saying that it had "barely" doubled in size, but whatever. My mother tends to exaggerate when it comes to my "failures" :p
The makings for the filling. Cinnamon, nutmeg and granulated sugar, with a little bit of butter to make it all stick to the dough.
The dough all rolled out. While rolling it out, due to the dough snapping back, I had to leave it to rest twice for 5 minutes, true to what the original recipe says.
After brushing on the butter and patting on the cinnamon/sugar/nutmeg mixture, this is what it looks like! I did use most of the mixture. It seems like a lot, but honestly? You lose a fair bit of it when you slice the dough and stack it, anyway. Plus, it just makes it tastier, which is worth the extra sugar/calories in my humble opinion :p
All assembled! Just needs to sit for a half an hour for its last rise...
All ready for baking and looking perfect. This is where I looked at my mom and said "HAH! Ye of little faith."
(Honestly, I was quite surprised that it turned out so well, too... but it is just a testament to my cooking skills and methods in general. Throw it together, pray it works out. And it usually does. Hah!)
Out of the oven and looking perfect! :D
I posted a similar picture up on Facebook and within one minute, four people had commented, drooling over it. Haha.
Overall Thoughts
This bread is AMAZINGGGGG. Even in my family, which is notorious for not being overly huge on sweet things (minus cookies and muffins), this disappeared within a day and a half. My dad even took some to work to share with his coworkers. It is that good.
That being said, this recipe takes a really long time to make, what with all of the rising time required for the dough. I would recommend only making it on a day where you have time and plenty of it. This is not something that you would throw together haphazardly after work, haha.
As for the proportions, I personally found that I needed a wee bit more flour, as the dough was too sticky to work with. I also wasn't exact on my pumpkin measurements though, which I think contributed to the sticky problem (heh). Also, the glaze only calls for a quarter of a teaspoon of rum -- call us alcoholics or what, but my mom and I both agreed that was pretty weak. So I upped it to a full teaspoon. Heh. I also used demerara sugar in place of brown, because it seemed like it would make it tastier. The result was a glaze that was not too sweet, not too rummy. The rum cut the sweetness of the sugar a bit, I think. I used amber rum, since it generally has a better flavour than white.
As for the bread itself, you can't really taste the pumpkin, but there is a certain something-something about it that is decidedly different from your usual cinnamon bun dough. More savoury, I think. Definitely more awesome, either way.
All in all, I would definitely make this recipe again! :D
For those interested in making this, you can find the recipe that I used at Willow Bird Baking.
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