Giant Kabocha Scone

It all began with a word, potimarron, which is the common name in French for scarlet kabocha (also known as red kuri squash or orange hokkaido squash). That word may not look or sound like much to non-native French speakers, but to these French ears, it evokes two of childhood's cold weather pleasures, pumpkin (potiron) and chestnuts (marrons).
We didn't have jack-o'-lanterns (or potimarrons for that matter) in France when I was growing up but my grandfather grew huge potirons (Cinderella pumpkins) in his vegetable garden (my grandmother made sweet pumpkin soup every fall) and the fragrance of roasting chestnuts was ubiquitous in Paris in late fall and winter: as soon as I was old enough to go to my weekly piano lessons by myself, my mother would give me a few coins so I could buy myself a cornet de marrons chauds (a paper cone of hot chestnuts) when I exited the métro at Place de l'Étoile. I would stick the hot cone in my coat pocket and one of my hands would remain warm all the way down Avenue de Wagram where a bitter wind always chilled me to the bones.
I remember the chestnut man too. He was dressed all in black and wore a thick tweed cap with flaps that covered his ears. He rubbed his hands constantly and when he removed one of his knit gloves to rummage for change in the tin box where he kept his money, I could see that his fingertips were red. As I left clutching my cornet deep inside my coat pocket, I could hear him start calling again in a singsong: "Chauds, chauds, les marrons chauds..."(Hot chestnuts, hot chestnuts) and while I dearly loved my white-haired and soft-cheeked piano teacher, this scratchy little tune has remained alive in my memory when, sadly, her polkas, sonatas and mazurkas have long since sunk into oblivion.
So when I first heard (or read, I can't remember) the word potimarron and long before I had a chance to see or taste the actual squash, I was already under the spell. When I finally managed to get my hands on one of these bright beauties, the spell worked its magic and I fell in love.

Of course the kabocha is an easy squash to love. Since its skin is edible, while it does have to be washed, it doesn't have to be peeled. It can be sliced open, seeded, then steamed or roasted. It can also be cut into chunks and added to a soup where it boils happily with other vegetables. It cooks rather fast in fact. Its flesh is both creamy and dry and does taste a lot like buttery chestnuts. It is also choke-full of vitamins, fiber and oligo-elements.
For all these reasons, when I saw a potimarron cookbook in a bookstore in Paris last March, I couldn't resist, all the more because its author was Cléa, a French blogger I greatly admire for her imaginative and flavorful cuisine. We now live in a part of the country where kabochas are commonly grown (among many other beautiful and tasty winter squashes) and having so many creative kabocha recipes at my disposal means we can take full advantage of this local crop without ever feeling bored or tired.
Witness the giant scone breadsong  and I made for breakfast a couple of days ago. She was in town for a BBGA-sponsored baking class which I also attended and she stayed over at our house. I did the mixing and breadsong kindly did the shaping, giving me a personal demo of her scone hand-"laminating" technique (she normally shapes the dough in a rectangle but it is easy enough to reshape it in a circle once the "laminating" is done).
It was indeed a learning experience to see breadsong at work: seemingly heeding secret orders, the dough shaped up for her in a way it may never have for me. I had thought it was really dry and would require the addition of buttermilk or yogurt but breadsong said, no, it would come together as it was and she was absolutely right, it did. Sheer mastery! Thank you, breadsong, I will always trust crumbly scone dough from now on and also, always, always, "laminate"as it does indeed make for a much airier texture. My heartfelt thanks to you too, Cléa, for being a fellow kabocha lover and for sharing your many ways of enjoying this magnificent squash! 

Ingredients:

• 125 g cooked kabocha puree (I steamed big chunks of the unpeeled kabocha, then ran the cooked squash through the foodmill. I tried using the food processor but it wouldn't work: I would have had to add some liquid, which I didn't want to do)
• 20 g olive oil
• 50 g fresh goat cheese, crumbled (Cléa used fresh sheep's milk cheese but I didn't have any)
• 1 egg
• 100 g emmer flour (I milled emmer berries I had on hand. If you don't have access to emmer, you may want to replace it with all-purpose flour or white whole wheat flour or equal parts of all-purpose and regular whole wheat flour)
• 150 g oat flour (Cléa uses corn flour but I didn't have any)
• 10 g baking powder
• 6 g sel
• 25 g dried apricots, chopped
• 25 g hard sheep's milk cheese, grated (I used a Basque cheese but I suspect Manchego would work fine too and it may be easier to find)

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350°F/180°C
2. In a big bowl, mix together the kabocha puree, the oil, the goat cheese and the egg until mostly incorporated (I used a fork)
3. Add the apricots and the hard cheese
4. Transfer to a work surface and quickly work the dough into an 8-inch circle (it will look impossibly crumbly at first)
5. Cut in six with a dough cutter without detaching the slices
6. Bake for 30 minutes
7. Enjoy warm or cold (it will keep well for a few days in a ziploc bag).

The Giant Kabocha Scone goes to Susan for Yeastspotting.

Seven Stars Bakery's Pumpkin Seed Bread

Sometimes I dream we are back in Providence, RI, and we go and have lunch at one of Seven Stars Bakery's three locations... In the two days we were there in November (I was attending a BBGA class with Richard Miscovich at Johnson's & Wales beautiful campus), we managed to hit all three. I can't say I have a favorite. We liked them all. All three feature the same seductive breads, pastries and cookies (everything is made in a nearby central location that Jim Williams, the owner, was kind enough to take us visit) and in all three, the atmosphere was relaxed and appealing: friends of all ages chatting over coffee or tea, dads reading books to toddlers before heading home from grocery shopping, students crouched over laptop screens or texting without a pause in their conversations, tourists - like us- rejoicing in the variety and quality of the offerings.

Everybody - friends, dads, students, tourists - had a tempting treat on the table in front of them and we had a (very) hard time limiting ourselves to what the two of us could reasonably sample. And that's coming from a woman who really doesn't like sweet things but who can resist Seven Stars' chocolate almond croissant? Not me... Although, true to form, I enjoyed the vegetarian sandwich even more.

In the evening, Jim and Lynn Williams were the gracious hosts for BBGA's Guildhall Gathering, which gave us the opportunity to taste even more breads and that's how I "discovered" and fell in love with their Pumpkin Seed Bread.

Seven Stars Bakery's Pumpkin Bread as sold at the bakery

I asked Jim if he wouldn't mind sharing the formula and, generous to a tee as are most bakers I know, he said he'd send it to me. So here we go... But before we proceed, you may want to take a closer look at the bakery's website, and more specifically at its baking process page which you'll find a most informative description of the work going on in a serious artisan bakery.

Back to the pumpkin bread. I had meant to bake it for Thanksgiving but we got back shortly before the holiday and it took an inordinate amount of time for me to rekindle my levain's enthusiasm for baking. Then we hit a cold spell and it was just freezing in the house (at least it felt like it) and when I did get to the bread, canned pumpkin had disappeared from the stores. Apparently it is a seasonal product in Washington State. Once Thanksgiving is over, it is as if it never existed. That's new to me as one of the rare things I could be sure to find year-round where I come from in the Northeast is canned pumpkin. But never mind that, we did manage to find a can after hitting a number of grocery stores and I just now baked the bread for our Christmas brunch (hence the wreath shape).

I love the flavor (nutty with a faint sweet note to which the tang of the rye levain offers a delicate counterpoint), the texture (mellow and chewy/crunchy at the same time) and the golden color. It takes its own sweet time to rise but you can make it over two days: I mixed the dough in the morning of the first day around 10, gave it three folds and let it rise slowly for about 4 hours. Then I put it in the garage (where the temperature was about 44°F/7°C) and I let it rest until morning. In the morning (around 8:00 AM), I set it to warm up at 77°F/25°C. It took a while: when I shaped the dough around 1:00 PM, its internal temperature was 66°F/19°C. But by then the room was really warm and the shaped loaves proofed happily in the baskets. I might have gotten a more open crumb if I had waited a little more but I had to go out, so by 2:00 PM, they went into the oven. Jim does it a bit differently: his final dough get a 2-hour bulk fermentation, then it proofs for 4 hours and gets baked. He warned me that at home, the process would be somewhat longer and he was right.

All in all, I am happy with the result. The crumb isn't as holey as Seven Stars' but the taste is right, the texture very appealing and I love the color. Thank you for sharing, Jim! Of course I can only encourage those of you who live in New England or have a chance to go visit to check out the bakery and have a taste for yourself. Maybe you'll even meet my friend Lumi who is now a baking instructor at Johnson &Wales and a huge fan of Seven Stars!

Ingredients (for one wreath and one oval loaf):

• 700 g unbleached all-purpose flour
• 106 g whole wheat (I used Fairhaven's white whole wheat berries which I milled for the recipe)
• 42 g cornmeal
• 665 g water (I used 645 g but then it depends on how thirsty your flour is), at required temperature to ultimately get a dough temperature of about 76°F/24°C
• 170 g canned pumpkin
• 102 g sesame seeds, toasted
• 170 g pumpkin seeds, toasted (I actually used 50 g pumpkin and 120 g sunflower seeds as it was all I had)
• 85 g mature wheat levain (at 65% hydration) (mine was my regular levain which calls for 33% whole-grains including wheat, spelt and rye)
• 51 g mature rye levain (at 100% hydration)
• 20 g salt

Method: (I mixed the dough by hand)

1. Mix the two levains and set aside, covered, at warm room temperature
2. Mix the flours and the polenta and most of the water until well incorporated. Cover and let autolyse for about 30 minutes, at warm room temperature
3. Incorporate the levains, then the pumpkin (at same warm room temperature), then add the salt
4. Add the rest of the water as necessary (I was left with about 20g of the original water amount)
5. Mix in the seeds until well distributed in the dough
6. Dough temperature was 75° when set to proof at warm room temperature in an oil-sprayed covered container.
7. Give it three folds 30 minutes apart and let it rise afterwards for about 4 hours (the length of time necessary to almost double).
8. Set it in the fridge (or in a cold spot like a garage) until the next morning
9. The day after, set it to warm up at room temperature and shape it in two loaves (scaled at 1000g)
10. Bake in prey-heated 470°F/243°C oven (with steam the first few minutes) for 10 minutes, then another 10 minutes (without opening the door) at 450°F/232°C, then turn the loaves around and bake another 15 minutes (for a total baking time of 35 minutes).
11. Turn the oven off and let the loaves rest inside with oven door ajar for another 5 minutes
12. Set to cool on a rack.
13. When completely cool, slice a loaf open, top a piece with some extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, set a glass of hard cider at your elbow, close your eyes, take a bite and find yourself magically transported to a crisp fall day in Providence, RI. Enjoy!
    
    Printable recipe

Seven Stars Bakery's Pumpkin Seed Bread will be going to Susan for Yeastspotting, her weekly roundup of breads and other baked goodies.