Pumpkin Focaccia - Bread Machine Cheat

So, Halloween has arrived and I am looking at pots of pumpkin guts sitting on my counter. Sure, I'll get around to roasting some pumpkin seeds & eventually peeling the skin from carved pumpkins and making soup but i want to try something different with what I normally just throw away. I'm talking about the slimy guts, the icky bits! I thought maybe deep frying it in a savory croquette batter or making the ubiquitous pumpkin loaf, but why make load, when you can make bread!

Now I have to be honest, this was supposed to be pumpkin bread, not pumpkin focaccia. But, I didn't realize that slimy pumpkin guts don't play nice with flour, not nice at all... This is almost eligible for the epic fail contest here on Instructables, but alas I turned it around.

Suffice to say this focaccia is swimming with pumpkin flavour, enhanced with brown sugar, cinnamon and a touch of ginger. It tastes amazing fresh or toasted. And it makes a mean club. But enough with descriptors, lets bake.

• 14 ounces of water
• 1 tablespoon of yeast
• 4 tablespoons of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
• 2 cups icky pumpkin guts, minus the seeds
• 5 cups white bread flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 3 tablespoons of butter

Ah, the beauty of a bread machine,

add all your ingredients to your break machine in the order as found in the ingredients list.

Set your bread machine to just mix the dough, its kinda gross with the pumpkin bits. Additionally the pumpkin bits add a ton of moisture and the sliminess stops the dough from really holding together well. Normally my bread uses about 3 cups of flour, even after 5 cups of flour this dough was way, way to sticky. Hence why i decided to make it focaccia style instead.

Normally letting your dough rise in a bread machine is fine, but this stuff took me off guard. For a sticky dough it rose incredibly fast. Ergo I'll be cleaning my machine for a week, watch your dough!

Pour your dough into a parchment lined baking sheet.

Coat your hand in a copious layer of butter and smooth the dough out.

let rise for about an hour. It will bubble and ooze till about double in bulk.

Bake in a oven preheated to 425 degrees for about 20 minutes until deep golden. Immediately remove from the tray and settle it on some cooling racks.

HhhmMMMmmm,usually i ramble on about how good it tastes. This time i just wanna eat it, and so will you.