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A sourdough boule for

Fall baking means in my house means lots of sourdough bread and lots of pumpkin, so I was only too happy to combine the two to make this gorgeous Pumpkin Sourdough Bread. This sourdough boule gets its color from pumpkin puree, complemented with dried cranberries and pepitas, then tied with twine so that it forms into the shape of a pumpkin as it bakes. The pumpkin stem is traded for a cinnamon stick to finish the look, but don't let that keep you from slicing into this beauty. This Pumpkin Sourdough Bread is equally delicious toasted with butter for breakfast or used for turkey sandwiches at lunch.

What skill level is this recipe suitable for?

I would consider this Pumpkin Sourdough Bread recipe suitable for moderate sourdough skill levels. This is not an advanced recipe, but you will need to know the basics of making sourdough bread before you begin. Some of the skills and terms used that you'll need to be comfortable with before proceeding with this recipe include:

Working with a mature sourdough starter and building a levain
Autolyzing dough
Mixing dough by hand: 'Rubaud method,' pinching the dough, or a series of 'stretch and folds'
Coil folds
Bulk fermentation
Shaping dough
Scoring dough
Taking the temperature of baked bread

* If you are a beginner sourdough bread maker equipped with a mature starter, but need help with learning the techniques to making sourdough bread, I highly suggest you check out this Basic Sourdough Bread Guide from my friend Bella at ful-filled and this guide to Basic Sourdough Bread from Maurizio at The Perfect Loaf. Both resources are fantastic for learning the ropes and developing confidence in making sourdough bread.

Ingredients that you'll need to make Pumpkin Sourdough Bread

Mature sourdough starter - I use a 100% hydration starter fed with equal parts organic all-purpose flour and organic dark rye flour. Sourdough starters fed with other types of glutinous flours should work, however, I am unable to offer advice for alternative hydration ratios.
Bread flour - The majority of this recipe is built with organic bread flour, which has a high protein content, which helps provide structure and the satisfying chewiness that I always associate with sourdough bread. It also has a fairly high water absorption rate, making it a great choice to use when you are combining with pumpkin puree, which contains a lot of water naturally. I use this bread flour and this bread flour most often.
Whole wheat flour - Has a very high water absorption rate and a complex flavor profile that I associate with cozy fall bakes. Whole wheat flour encourages a denser, heavier bake than white flours though so I only use a small percentage in this recipe. I use this whole wheat flour most often.
Water - You'll want to use filtered room temperature water
Pumpkin puree - Pumpkin puree gives this sourdough bread its pumpkin flavor and color. It naturally has an extremely high water content (some higher than 90%) so the additional water added to this recipe is kept reasonably low compared to other sourdough bread recipes as a result. I have tested this recipe using Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin, which I feel offers slightly less water content than other brands I've used and the most consistent results.
Kosher salt - My standard kitchen salt is Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt, which I use in all of my baking.
Optional mix-ins - Sweetened dried cranberries and pepitas (pumpkin seeds) are what I prefer to use in this recipe, but there are more options in the post below. You are, of course, able to omit the mix-ins altogether, if preferred.
White rice flour - My go-to flour for dusting the dough with prior to scoring. It helps you retain all the lovely designs scored into your bread and helps prevent the dough from sticking to the parchment paper and kitchen twine.

How to make sourdough bread pumpkin-shaped

Cut 4 pieces of kitchen twine, around 24-inches each.
Working on your countertop, place a piece of parchment paper down and arrange the twine so that they each cross in the center, resulting in 8 equal sections all of equal length.
Lightly flour the surface of the twine and parchment with white rice flour -- this will help prevent the twine from sticking to the bread so much that it's difficult to remove after baking.
Place your completed bread dough in the center of the strings and sprinkle the top with white rice flour. Then tie each string over the dough, crossing in the center of the top of the dough. You do not want to pull the strings tightly, just tie them roughly flush with the dough so they are secure and don't flop around. The dough will expand around the strings as it bakes, resulting in a pumpkin shape. If you force the pumpkin shape too deeply with the strings before baking, they will lodge too deeply into the dough as it expands and will be very difficult to remove after baking.
Once baked, simply cut the strings and carefully pull them off. If desired, you can press a cinnamon stick into the top of the bread to look like a pumpkin stem.

What kind of pumpkin puree is best?

I have only ever used canned pumpkin puree in this Pumpkin Sourdough Bread recipe for a few reasons.

Pumpkin naturally contains a lot of water, around 90% on average and extracting that water from fresh pumpkin to make puree can be difficult and produce inconsistent results. I prefer to use Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin because I feel it offers less water content than some of the other brands I've used and the most consistent results from can-to-can.
Canned pumpkin puree is often smoother and more easily blended into baked goods than fresh.
It's an easy shortcut I'm willing to embrace. I'm not the type to take a lot of shortcuts, but with my pumpkin puree, I do. Opening a can of pumpkin puree is a lot easier than breaking down, cooking, pureeing, and disgorging the excess water from fresh pumpkins. I prefer to enjoy my fresh pumpkin roasted and enjoyed in savory dinner dishes instead.

What kinds of mix-ins should I add to this sourdough bread?

My preference, and what you'll see in the images of this recipe, is to mix 80g (about ½ cup) sweetened dried cranberries and 60 g (about ½ cup) pepitas/pumpkin seeds into this Sourdough Pumpkin Bread dough. If you want to experiment with your sourdough bread mix-ins, I think the following would all be lovely in this pumpkin bread:

Other dried fruits - Currants, blueberries, apricots, or raisins (both traditional and golden)
Other seeds - sunflower, poppy, black sesame
Nuts - Almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, walnuts

What tools do I need to make this recipe?

A kitchen scale (I do not offer cup measurements for sourdough bread recipes as they rely on a fair amount of accuracy and cups are not accurate)
A large mixing bowl
A clean kitchen towel
A glass jar with a loose lid
A small spatula (that can fit in your levain/starter jar)
A Danish dough whisk -- nice to have but not essential
A silicone bowl scraper
A spray bottle with water
A round bread banneton -- OR -- a medium mixing bowl lined with a clean linen cloth
A bread proofing bag
Parchment paper (it will need to be safe for temps of 475 degrees F / 250 C)
Kitchen twine
Scissors
A pastry brush
A bread lame -- OR -- a clean razor blade -- OR -- a sharp knife
A large lidded dutch oven (it will need to be safe for temps of 475 degrees F / 250 C)
Oven mitts -- OR -- oven gloves
A cooling rack
A bread knife

Are you looking to upgrade to your cooking tools or replenish your pantry? Check out my kitchen tools shop page and pantry staples shop page to find my must-have kitchen tools, pantry items, and other Whip & Wander favorites.

Looking for more baking inspiration?

Love this recipe for Pumpkin Sourdough Bread? Here are some more baking recipes you might enjoy:

Sourdough Discard Pumpkin Scones
Sourdough Discard Spiced Pear Muffins
Pumpkin Pizza with Gruyere and Crispy Sage
Pumpkin Pasties (sweet and savory versions) (gluten-free optional)
Pumpkin-Spice Bundt Cake with Maple Bourbon Butterscotch Sauce (gluten-free)

Pumpkin Sourdough Bread

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Author: Whip & Wander
Prep Time: 60 minutes
Inactive Time: 23 hours
Cook Time: 55 minutes
Total Time: 24 hours 55 minutes
Yield: 8 servings (wedges) 1x
Category: Breads
Method: Oven
Cuisine: French
Diet: Vegetarian

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Description

Ingredients

Scale

For the levain

50 g mature sourdough starter (100% hydration)
50 g bread flour
50 g whole wheat flour
100 g room-temperature water

For the dough:

350 g bread flour
70 g whole wheat flour
85 g room-temperature water
338 g canned pumpkin puree
9 g Kosher salt
White rice flour, for dusting

Optional mix-ins:

80 g (about ½ cup) sweetened dried cranberries
60 g (about ½ cup) pepitas/ pumpkin seeds

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Instructions

Day 1 (using a sample schedule):

8 am: Build your levain. In a medium jar, add 50 g mature sourdough starter, 50 g bread flour, 50 g whole wheat flour, and 100 g room-temperature water. Mix with a small spatula until evenly combined. Cover the jar with a loose lid and reserve to the side in a reasonably warm environment for 5 hours, or until the levain has (at a minimum) doubled in size. If your environment is on the warm side mine often rises up to 3x its original size.
10 am: Autolyze the dough. In a large mixing bowl, add 350 g bread flour, 70 g whole wheat flour, 85 g room-temperature water, and 338 g canned pumpkin puree and mix until well-combined and no dry bits remain. I prefer to use a Danish dough whisk for this, but you can use a mixing spoon and finish by hand if you prefer. Cover with a clean damp kitchen towel and reserve to the side for 3 hours.
1 pm: Add the levain to the autolyzed dough. Gently scrape the levain out of the jar onto the dough using a small silicone spatula. Mix the levain and the dough together by hand by pinching and folding the dough over the levain until well-combined and you have a shaggy, sticky dough. Cover with the damp kitchen towel and reserve to the side for 30 minutes.
1:35 pm: Add the salt. Sprinkle the salt over the top of the dough. Using your fingers, squish the salt into the dough, then fold over on itself and mix by hand until well-combined using your desired method. I use the Rubaud method which is a 'scoop, lift, and slap,' mimicking a diving arm mixer, but I know others who prefer to pinch the ingredients together and do a series of stretch and folds until their dough is well-mixed. Cover with the damp kitchen towel and set to the side for 1 hour.
2:45 pm: Add the mix-ins. Spray your countertop down with a fine mist of water, then dampen the edge of a silicone bowl scraper with water and scoop your dough out onto the counter. Wet your fingers and gently pull the sourdough out into a large rectangle. Sprinkle 80 g sweetened dried cranberries and 60 g pepitas over the top of the dough. Fold the outer side ⅓ of the dough over to the center and then the remaining outer side ⅓ of the dough until you have covered the mix-ins with dough and have a long, thin parcel of dough. Repeat this ⅓ fold in the opposite direction until you have a square parcel of folded dough. Lightly spray a clean mixing bowl (I clean and reuse the same one) with a fine mist of water and return the dough to the bowl. Recover with the damp kitchen towel and reserve to the side to continue the bulk ferment.
3:30 pm: Coil fold #1
4 pm: Coil fold #2
4:30 pm: Coil fold #3
5 pm: Coil fold #4. Recover with the damp kitchen towel and reserve to the side to rest for the remainder of bulk fermentation.
7 pm: Shape the dough and transfer to proofing vessel: Generously dust a round bread banneton (or a medium mixing bowl lined with a clean linen cloth) with white rice flour and reserve to the side. Lightly dust your dry kitchen counter with a layer of white rice flour. Using a silicone bowl scraper, gently turn your dough out onto the counter. Gently stretch and fold the corners of the dough out and over to the center until you have shaped a round boule. Using your silicone bowl scraper, transfer the dough to your prepared proofing vessel, seam side down. Cover with the kitchen towel and allow to rest for 20-25 minutes.
7:30 pm: Retard dough overnight. Transfer the dough in its proofing vessel to a proofing bag and transfer to the refrigerator to retard overnight for 12-16 hours.

Day 2

Transfer your lidded Dutch oven to a cool oven on the center rack. Then preheat the oven to 475 degrees F / 250 C for one hour with the Dutch oven inside.
A few minutes before you plan to transfer the bread to the oven, prep the parchment paper and kitchen twine to get your pumpkin shape. Cut 4 pieces of kitchen twine, around 24-inches each and a sheet of parchment paper that is large enough to accommodate your bread without hanging outside of the Dutch oven.
Working on your countertop, place a piece of parchment paper down and arrange the twine so that they each cross in the center, resulting in 8 equal sections all of equal length.
Lightly flour the surface of the twine and parchment with white rice flour -- this will help prevent the twine from sticking to the bread so much that it's difficult to remove after baking.
Remove the bread from the refrigerator and remove from it's proofing bag. Gently turn the dough over, out of the banneton, onto the center of the kitchen twine and generously sprinkle the top of the dough with white rice flour. Then tie each string over the dough, crossing in the center of the top of the dough. You do not want to pull the strings tightly, just tie them roughly flush with the dough so they are secure and don't flop around. The dough will expand around the strings as it bakes, resulting in a pumpkin shape. If you force the pumpkin shape too deeply with the strings before baking, they will lodge too deeply into the dough as it expands and will be very difficult to remove after baking.
Snip the excess ends of the twine ties with scissors and brush off the excess white rice flour from the parchment paper with a pastry brush.
Using a bread lame, a clean razor, or a sharp knife carefully score the bread as desired.
Remove the Dutch oven from your preheated oven and remove the lid. Carefully transfer the twined dough and the parchment paper into the Dutch oven and resecure the lid. Transfer the Dutch oven back to the oven. Once closed, reduce the oven heat to 450 degrees F / 230 C. Bake for 35 minutes then carefully remove the lid from your Dutch oven and continue baking the bread in the open Dutch oven for an additional 20 minutes. If you find that your bread is starting to darken too quickly, you can return the Dutch oven lid to the top to reduce browning. The internal temperature of your finished bread should be 210 degrees F / 99 C.
Carefully transfer the bread from the Dutch oven to a wire baking rack to cool fully before slicing. Once cool, remove the strings by snipping with scissors and carefully pulling them off. If desired, you can press a cinnamon stick into the top of the bread to look like a pumpkin stem.

Notes

Nutritional information on Whip & Wander is provided as a courtesy and is approximate only. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 large wedge (⅛th of boule)
Calories: 344
Sugar: 9 g
Sodium: 556 mg
Fat: 4 g
Saturated Fat: 1 g
Carbohydrates: 63 g
Fiber: 6 g
Protein: 12 g

Keywords: Pumpkin, levain, sourdough, bread