TWD: Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Loaves

Tuesdays with Dorie baking through Baking with Julia
by Dorie Greenspan
Recipe by Steve Sullivan



This bread has to be good. The contributing baker is Steve Sullivan, founder of Acme Bread.
Acme supplies breads to our local restaurants and grocery stores, and Steve once worked baking bread at Alice Waters' famed Chez Panisse in Berkeley, CA.

I have yet to make it over to Chez Panisse, something I have wanted to do for quite some time. A friend of mine eats there a few times a year and I always question her as to what she had, from appetizer to dessert. Always the menu sounds fabulous! The one thing I look forward to beside the awesome food is that they ask that you refrain from using your cell phone or laptops at the table (a pet peeve of mine) - this request is even printed on the menu! I must get there soon..

Sorry to digress - back to the topic at hand: Cranberry-Walnut Pumpkin Loaves.

This recipe screams fall - pumpkin, cranberry, yeast breads. I'm so ready for fall foods, but we have been having such nice awesome weather (high 70's to low 80's) that it just has not been cool enough for soups, stews and the like, but bread I can handle.

The recipe is pretty straight forward. Just plan on two days to make this bread. You need to refrigerate the dough overnight between risings, though I read here that "merrybaker" skipped the refrigeration. I'm a novice bread maker so I followed Mr. Sullivan's directions.

The bread is moist and soft the day of baking, and like the whole wheat loaves they start to become dry by the next day. Maybe that is how it is with homemade bread (i.e. no preservatives). Unfortunately the pumpkin flavor is not very pronounced. Toasted with butter, this is reminiscent to the raisin bread I had as a child, with a slight twang from the cranberries.

Once again, as with the whole wheat loaves we made recently, this is just OK. I feel this bread was not worth the time invested; I was also hoping for more of a pumpkin essence. I'll stick with the awesome quick-bread recipe of Pumpkin Bran Bread which has a lot more flavor, a lot less time to make, and stays moist for several days after baking.

Success meter (1-3): 2

Tip:

Grate your nutmeg into a measuring cup.

I find it easier to get the ground nutmeg 

into the measuring spoon this way.

I had a hard time keeping the cranberries

incorporated in the dough. They kept

wriggling their way out.

After an overnight rest in the refrigerator,

divide your dough and shape into loaves.

The cranberries just want to keep poppin' out!

Originally I was going to use two standard size

loaf pans until I found these burried in the back

of my cupboard. :)

All tucked in and ready to rise.

An hour later - beautiful!

If you're interested in the recipe visit the site of our host:

Rebecca at This Bountiful Backyard

You may also want to check out the LYL link for my fellow

blogger's trials and triumphs of this recipe.

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