15 Comments
User's avatar
Beth's avatar

This is the first time I've successfully made such a high hydration recipe (without a sticky dough mess) and the texture is insane. Very much appreciate how this has demystified the process!

Nicola Lamb's avatar

AMAZING!!! I hope you can use this as your base dough for lots of different things. Pumpkin is such a friendly starch it turns out!

Megan Del Grosso's avatar

These buns are delicious. The dough is sooo soft. I've never brushed cinnamon buns with butter out of the oven and will be doing so going forward. Love your recipes!

Nicola Lamb's avatar

Yay! this makes me so happy. And yes, all buns deserve the butter treatment.

Judy's avatar

Ideally, what temperature should the dough rise at?

Judy's avatar

No worries! I do a lot of sourdough bread baking so I’m really unfamiliar with commercial yeast. I do have a proofing chamber (in a no-longer working mini-fridge, powered by a seedling mat) so I used that at about 24. They were incredible. The dough was a joy to work with. My husband at 3 in one sitting! I wish there was a way to post a picture. Your recipes are so good. Sift is truly a transformational cookbook. I often bake from it for no reason except to enjoy the process and learn. THANK YOU!!!

Nicola Lamb's avatar

Oh my gosh let me know how your sour dough-ified it! And the times. I’m sure people would love to know how to do this themselves.

Nicola Lamb's avatar

Hi Judy, sorry for the delay. I tend to rise my doughs at ambient temperature, around 21-22c. If you have the wherewithal to create a little proofing box in your oven with the help of some freshly boiled water, you could push it up to 29-30c.

Claire's avatar

Pumpkin question! I read your previous newsletter where you test all the pumpkins (sidenote: cant agree more kabocha squash is superior) but one of the varieties I expected to see but you didn’t test, was a sugar pumpkin. In Canada that is the typical pumpkin recipes call for for homemade pumpkin pie for example. Curious if you’ve run into this pumpkin or have a sense for how it stacks up against the others?

Nicola Lamb's avatar

SO, I've just done a bit of light googling (ha) about the presence of sugar pumpkin in the UK. It doesn't seem that we have that variety here - also it is unclear to me if a sugar pumpkin is a specific variety or a catch-all term for a denser fleshed pumpkin. It is possible that a crown prince might be designated a 'sugar pumpkin' if grown in North America!

Nicola Lamb's avatar

Hi Claire, I've actually never heard of a sugar pumpkin! let me do some research..

Rebecca R's avatar

Made these with canned pumpkin last weekend and they were incredible. Question: Do you think they could be refrigerated overnight once assembled? Hoping to time them to bake first thing in the morning.

Claire's avatar

I tried refrigerating overnight after assembly and worked like a charm

James's avatar

If using tinned pumpkin in the dough, does that also need to be drained of any excess liquid?

Maria Gurevich's avatar

Hi Nicola! I was wondering, would it be fine to freeze the dough for longer than 30 mins after it’s risen and been pressed down, in case I wanted to make a batch for a rainy day? And if so, how long would it be okay to freeze it for?