Wholemeal Pumpkin Buns

Got a quarter portion of an organic pumpkin when we did some marketing at JB with my mum during the recent trip there, and used them to make some healthy wholemeal pumpkin buns. If you love pumpkins, you will love this sweet buns :)

The one good thing about buns with fillings is that I do not need put some time aside for jam spreading on bread slices. All I need to do is just grab the nicely packed buns and off to work I go.

This time, I had the buns made the buns in  floral shapes and another batch in round shape with snipped cross tops.

Which do you prefer? 

Wholemeal Pumpkin Buns

Gelatinized dough

50g bread flour
35ml boiling water

1. Place flour in a mixing bowl.
2. Add hot boiling water and mix with wooden spoon to form a rough dough.
3. Cover bowl with cling film and leave dough to cool in the fridge for at least 1 hour, and up to 48 hours.

Pumpkin bread dough

150g bread flour
60g wholemeal flour
40g sugar
4g instant yeast
1/4 tsp or 3g salt
50g pumpkin puree (Steam pumpkin pcs till soft and mash with fork and leave to cool before use)
47ml cold water
30g butter, room temperature

Pumpkin Fillings
160g pumpkin puree
15g brown sugar
1 tsp cornstarch

Place all fillings ingredient into a pot and stir and cook on medium low heat till thickened. Spoon into 10 equal portions. Shape it into round balls and then cover with clingwrap, refrigerate till later use.

Buns

1. Tear gelatinized dough into smaller pieces into the bread machine. Add water, pumpkin puree and top with flour. Place salt and sugar on opposite corners of bread machine, make a small deep hole in centre of flour and spoon in instant yeast. Gently cover yeast with some flour and set BM to work. I used Function 8 for Kenwood BM250 for this step. 

2. When dough has come together and is more or less a smooth dough, add in softened butter. I restarted my BM on Function 8 again and let BM mix till well incorporated with dough and is smooth and soft. I then remove dough and hand knead till dough reaches window pane stage, where you get a thin translucent membrane when dough is stretched. (This more or less tells you that you will get soft and fluffy bread and buns!)

3. Shape dough into a ball, leave to proof for 40 min or until doubled. 

4. Punch down dough to rid excess air, then divide dough into 10 equal portions and roll it round and set aside for 5 min to let it relax for easier rolling. 

5. Roll out dough into a round shape and place pumpkin puree filling onto centre of flattened dough and wrap up into round dough, sealing well dough bottoms. Slightly press down and flatten dough. Place each dough on a greased baking tin. Repeat for the remaining dough. 

6. Cover with clean moist cloth and leave to proof for 40min or till doubled in size. 

7. Using a clean kitchen scissors, make 5 equal snips of about 1.5cm on sides of buns.  Brush bun tops with whisked egg yolk mixed with 1 tsp water, sprinkle some pumpkin seeds on centre of each dough and bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 12 to 15min or till slightly golden brown. 

8. Cool on a wire rack before storing in an airtight container.