GBWO, Week 7, Festival Week: Halloween Pumpkin Buns

WW-Friendly Pumpkin Buns

Makes 9 at 4sp each

For the bread dough:
250 g bread flour
15 g caster sugar
2 g salt
3 g 
80 ml almond milk
100 g pumpkin puree
15 g I Can't Believe It's So Good And Light

For the filling:
300 g pumpkin puree 
30 g NKD Living Erythritol Gold
30 g I Can't Believe It's So Good And Light
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/16 tsp ground cloves

9 pieces of kitchen twine/cotton, 90 cm each, soaked in oil


Make the filling:
Heat up all the filling ingredients in a saucepan until the butter has melted and everything is well mixed. Leave to cool and divide into 9 portions. Wrap each of these portions up in clingfilm to make 9 filling balls and chill in the freezer. 

Make the bread:
Put the bread flour, sugar, salt, yeast, almond milk and pumpkin puree in a bowl and mix until combined. Slowly incorporate the I Can't Believe It's So Good And Light whilst kneading for about 20 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Form a ball with the dough.

Place the dough in a lightly greased mixing bowl, cover with cling film and let proof in a turned off oven that has a pan of boiling water in the bottom of it, until it has doubled in size (approximately 1 hour).

Remove the dough from the bowl and knock back (knead to remove the gas bubbles). Weigh the dough and divide into 9 equal portions (mine were about 50 g each). Roll each dough into smooth balls, cover with cling film and rest the balls for 10 minutes.

On a lightly floured work surface, flatten each dough ball into a round disc, using your fingers to squash out any trapped air as you flatten the dough. Take your pumpkin filling out of the freezer and out of the cling film and wrap each filling ball in the dough discs. Pinch and seal the seam.

Wrap the oiled cotton strings around the dough balls to form 8 segments. You do not have to wrap these tightly.

Place the balls seam side down on lined baking trays, giving them room to expand. Cover with cling film and leave the dough to proof for the second time for about 40 minutes, or until doubled in size.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 160 deg C, fan assisted, for 20 mins or until golden brown. You can cover the buns with baking paper lids towards the end of baking if they brown too quickly. Remove from the oven and transfer to wire track to cool a little.

Remove the cotton string before eating. I decorated mine with edible gold glitter and made stalks from tomato vines. (I was going to use Matchmakers ;-) )

Enjoy!