Grandma's pumpkin bread

Going to lunch at Grandma's was often a mixed bag. She served foods way outside my comfort zone — I recall a lot of gravy and canned green beans — but there was a chance she'd make pumpkin bread. Moist and sweet, it was the best thing on earth. It's long been a star at my family's Thanksgiving dinner, and it's my go-to baked gift for the holidays. It's also one of the recipes I'm asked to share the most.

I've given up on tinkering with this basic recipe. Attempts to swap in white whole wheat flour or applesauce have just made a mess of a good thing. Sometimes I scale back the staggering amount of sugar, but only by a mere half cup. I don't fully understand why there's both baking soda and baking powder, but I've never dared experiment to find out if that's truly necessary. I don't question this recipe, I just bake it. A lot.

It is what it is, and it's delicious.

This makes two beautiful loaves. The bread freezes well, so you can bake ahead of Thanksgiving or gift-giving season. I usually slice one as soon as it cools, because it's irresistible, and stash the second loaf in the freezer before we inhale both loaves.

Last week I recruited my sons to help bake pumpkin bread to share. It's so simple, they're ready to begin committing this recipe to memory.

Thanks, Grandma.

Grandma's Pumpkin Bread

You can substitute fresh pumpkin purée for canned — I stick with canned because of fairly consistent moisture content and reliable flavor. You also could stir in chopped nuts or chocolate chips, but be careful with added chocolate, as this is already very sweet.

3 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
3 eggs
2 cups pumpkin purée
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blend oil and sugar in a large bowl, then whip in eggs. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Stir pumpkin into the creamed mix, then stir in the dry ingredients. Pour batter into two greased loaf pans and bake one hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a loaf comes out clean.

Pumpkin sourdough monster rolls

We had so much fun making these monstrous dinner rolls with friends! This is a choose-your-own adventure project: You can just set out store-bought dough with a handful of raisins for embellishment, or bread bakers could add pumpkin purée to homemade dough, or those of you with sourdough starter on hand could go all in and make pumpkin sourdough dinner rolls.

Pumpkin sourdough is delicious, but the real treat here is making the rolls together. It's a terrific after-school or rainy day activity. Enjoy some giggly, creative time together in the kitchen, fill your home with the smell of freshly baked bread, and savor your not-so-hard work with dinner.

I'll break this down according to degree of ambition: First, how to make rolls, then how to add pumpkin to homemade dough, and finally how to make your own pumpkin sourdough rolls from scratch.

Shaping monster rolls

Use whatever dough you'd like: store-bought, homemade, the sourdough below. Just tear off hunks of dough and make whatever you wish. I set out some past-their-prime spices for decorations — star anise, cinnamon sticks, whole allspice, and cloves — along with raisins, nuts and seeds, and rosemary sprigs. Dust hands and dough with flour to make it easier to handle, and work right on the baking sheet.

The shaped rolls need to rise a second time before going into the oven. They'll double in size, and as they puff up they'll push out whatever raisins or nuts you've poked into the dough. So push them way in there: The raisins, for example, were almost buried in the dough but came out perfect. Dip a finger in a bowl of water and "paint" the dough to help stick down things like rosemary leaves.

Kids can also use scissors to shape the dough — they're a great tool to makes scales or spikes, for example. But wait until after the second rise, right before the rolls go into the oven. That's how I did the bat: I shaped long triangular wings, and just before baking I snipped the bottom of the wings and stretched the pieces apart.

Bake the rolls according to your recipe or the package instructions.

Adding pumpkin to bread dough

You can pumpkin-ify homemade bread dough easily: Just add a cup or so of pumpkin purée to your favorite recipe. You'll probably need to add flour to compensate for the extra moisture. Fresh or canned pumpkin work equally well, though you're likely to get more color out of canned (be sure to used plain pumpkin, not pumpkin pie purée!).

To make fresh pumpkin purée, cut a sugar pie pumpkin in half, scoop out the strings and seeds, and pierce the shell a few times with a fork. Set the pumpkin halves cut side down on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 90 minutes, until the center is easily pierced with a fork. Let cool, then purée flesh in a food processor or blender. If it's really wet, line a strainer with a kitchen towel or cheesecloth and strain the pumpkin before using it.

Pumpkin sourdough rolls

Weight measurements are provided in parentheses, in case you prefer to weigh ingredients. You might need more or less flour, depending on how wet your pumpkin purée is. You can substitute wheat flour for some of the AP flour — I used equal portions of white flour, white whole wheat, and whole wheat. (Note that wheat flour weighs less: 4 ounces per cup, versus 4 1/4 ounces per cup of white flour.) This yields a sticky dough, so have plenty of flour on hand for shaping the rolls.

1 cup (8 ounces) "fed" sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) lukewarm water
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup (9 1/2 ounces) pumpkin purée
5 to 6 cups (21 1/4 to 25 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
melted butter, optional

Combine all the ingredients except butter. Knead by hand or in a mixer with the dough attachment until smooth. Let rise in an oiled, covered bowl until doubled in size, about 90 minutes.

Shape rolls on baking trays lined with parchment paper or silicone mats. Cover with a towel and let rise again until doubled, about half and hour.

Bake rolls for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees, checking frequently after 15 minutes. Brush the tops with melted butter, if you'd like, for softness and rich color.

Fresh Pumpkin Muffins

One of my favorite things about the arrival of fall is pumpkin season. With the falling golden leaves and cold weather comes the inspiration: Halloween is almost here and all the parties that surround it invite me to bake.

This recipe is a good old-fashioned one that calls for freshly puréed pumpkin. Yes, no cans here, please. It might be good not just Halloween but also for Thanksgiving. My children, who are mostly averse to pumpkin pies, loved them. I can't wait to have another excuse to bake another dozen of these delicate-flavored muffins.

Fresh Pumpkin Muffins

I used a medium-size sugar pie pumpkin, cooking it in chunks with a bit of water for 30 minutes in the pressure cooker. If you're not familiar with a pressure cooker, just bake the pumpkin in the oven at 350 degrees for about one hour or until it is tender. 

1 cup sugar pumpkin, cooked and puréed
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup oat bran
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts 

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a big bowl mix pumpkin, sugar, eggs, and oil. Let the mix rest for about 15 minutes and then whisk again.

In another bowl mix bran, flours, baking powder, baking soda, and spices and mix well with a whisk. Gradually add the dry mix to the wet mix with the help of a spoon just until you get an even batter. Slowly add walnuts and chocolate chips.

Spoon batter into baking cups, filling each cup about two-thirds full. Bake about 25 minutes until the top of the muffins are golden. Enjoy for breakfast or a mid-afternoon snack.