Pumpkin Cloverleaf Dinner Rolls

Ever want a sliiiightly fall bread, but not want to go for the full sweet loaf we so often think of as pumpkin bread? These rolls have a hint of the floral pumpkin sense on your tongue when you eat them, that just hint at fall, but still fit with your dinner.

A few notes before we get started:

• Be sure you buy pumpkin puree and NOT pumpkin pie filling!
• Flour amounts vary depending on heat, humidity and a number of factors that affect moisture content in the dough that are out of our control. I start checking the texture of the dough around 3.5 cups, but may add up to as much as a whole additional cup of flour while kneading.
• Different glazes brushed on your bread affect the final bread’s appearance. Brushing your rolls with just the egg white gives the bread a shine.
• You can approximate when the rolls are done by time. If you want to be more precise, I use this instant thermometer.

Ingredients

Recipe yields 12 dinner rolls

• 7g (2 tsp) active dry yeast (one packet) 
• 113g (½ cup) water
• 43g (2 tbsp) honey
• 225g (1 cup)  pumpkin puree OR mashed sweet potato
• 1 large egg
• 28g (2 tbsp) butter, melted & cooled (or sub vegan butter)
• 10g (2 tsp) Kosher salt (or calculate your salt substitute)
• ~400-500g (3.25-4 cups) all purpose flour
• vegetable oil, for mixing bowls & muffin cups
• 1 egg white, beaten

Method

Day 1: Evening

• In a large bowl of a stand mixer, mix water, yeast and honey. Let sit for 5 minutes until bubbly.
• Add pumpkin puree (or sweet potato, if using), eggs, butter and salt. Mix well.
• With the mixer running, add the flour in batches. At about 3 cups, switch to adding spoons of flour until dough comes together and begins to form a ball. You might not use all the flour.
• Knead until smooth & elastic: about 5 minutes in the stand mixer or 10 minutes by hand on a floured board. 
• Place in an oiled bowl and rise overnight in the fridge.

Day 2, about 10AM: Dough

• Remove dough from the fridge and allow it to come up to room temperature, ~ 1 hr.
• Deflate dough and knead for about 1 minute. 
• Let dough rise for 10 minutes.
• Grease muffin cups.
• To shape the dough: make 36 equal balls (~37g each). Place 3 balls in each of the greased muffin cups. Cover the muffin tray with plastic and let rise for 1 hour. 
• Preheat the oven to 400°F. Check that a rack is set in the middle of the oven.
• Once the dough has risen for an hour, brush rolls with egg white.
• Bake for ~20 minutes on the middle rack, or until rolls reach an internal temperature of 185°F.
• Remove the muffin tin from the oven and place on the cooling rack. Let rest for 5 minutes and then remove rolls from the muffin tin to complete cooling.