Lovely warm cinnamon bread...

I'm not a food photographer. Can you tell?

Of course, I was totally going for the slightly out of focus and amateur look...I particularly like how I prettified it up with a plastic lid :) I'm sorry for my poor photography skills and lack of effort...I really should have added the glaze after transferring the bread to something a little more pretty because it was really not going to work after the glaze had been poured :) To help make you drool like I did then here's the photo that got me hooked:

Mmmm. This was how I used up {most} of my left over pumpkin. I have to slightly correct my last post when I said about mixing sweet and savoury. I'm not a fan when it's obvious...like jam on toast (I'm sorry but I can't get my head around toast being anything but a savoury thing), rice pudding or, say, courgette and cheese muffins. But I like it when you can sneak things in and you would never know...the pumpkin is really not the main taste in this bread (think lovely warm cinnamon) but knowing it's in there means I can fool myself know that I'm getting one of my five a day with every bite...don't even think about telling me otherwise.

This is definately a recipe to make when you've got a day at home as there's plenty of time where you have to be patient and leave it to rise.

Pull apart cinnamon sugar and pumpkin bread.
(very minorly adapted from sunny side up in san diego)

Ingredients:

Bread:                                             
30g unsalted butter          
110ml milk                                                          
2 tsp active dry yeast                                        
150g pumpkin puree                                               
50g castor sugar                                                                                   
1 tsp salt
340g bread flour

Cinnamon sugar:
100g castor sugar
2tsp ground cinnamon
1/4tsp ground nutmeg
30g unsalted butter

Glaze:
30g unsalted butter
25g soft brown sugar
1.5tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla essence
90g icing sugar, sifted

1) Heat a saucepan over a medium heat and melt 30g butter until browned...if you're not sure how to make brown butter then take a look here (it only takes a few minutes with this amount of butter)

2) Heat 110ml milk either in a pan or in the microwave. Add the milk and browned butter to a large bowl. Leave to cool until warm {not hot} and add 50g castor sugar and yeast. Leave to proof for approximately 8 minutes (apparently it's meant to go foamy and cloudy...I obviously went wrong as mine did neither, but it turned out just fine).

3) Add the pumpkin, salt and 1/3 of the flour. Stir until combined and gradually add the rest of the flour. If the dough is still very wet and sticky, continue to add flour 1 tbsp at a time until the dough comes together. Knead for 6 minutes until smooth, elastic and very slightly sticky.

4) Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean towel. Leave to rise in a warm place for about 60-90 minutes.

5) Time for the cinnamon sugar. Brown 30g of butter over a medium heat. In a separate bowl combine 100g sugar with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Set to one side.

6) Take the dough and knead again for 1-2 minutes. Roll into a large rectangle (about 1/2cm thick). Brush the butter over the dough and sprinkle over the cinnamon sugar. Press into the dough.

7) Cut the rectangle into 6 strips. Lay the strips on top of one another and cut into 6-8 even squares.

8) Grease a 9x5" loaf tin. Stack the squares vertically into the tin. Cover with a clean towel and leave to rise again for 30-45 minutes. During this time preheat the oven to 170 degree celcius.

9) Bake for 45 minutes. The top of the bread should be a deep golden brown. I covered my bread with foil after 30 minutes as it was a gorgeous colour on top but not quite cooked in the middle.

10) For the glaze: heat the butter, milk and brown sugar in a pan. Bring to the boil and remove from the heat immediately. Stir in the vanilla essence and icing sugar until smooth. Pour over the bread.

This is so tasty I can't tell you enough that you should go and make this now :)