🎃 Pumpkin Buns for Halloween!

A cozy fall 🍂 and Halloween 👻 baking recipe that fills your home with warmth and the smell of homemade pastry! These rolls are made from yeast dough. It’s not difficult to make, but it does take some time. The rolls turn out soft, fragrant, and very beautiful — they look like little pumpkins.

You can find the step-by-step video on our family YouTube channel, where our 9-year-old chef cooks with heart and determination 👉https://youtu.be/QDighsbhdKs

Starter:

Milk — 2/3 cup (150 ml)

Sugar — 1/4 cup (50 g)

Fresh yeast — 0.6 oz (18 g)

Dough:

Pumpkin purée — 2/3 cup (160 g) ( Quick pumpkin purée recipe (57 sec) https://youtube.com/shorts/YP9ZQRqAVlk)

Egg yolks — 2

Flour — 3 1/2 cups (450 g, maybe a bit more depending on the purée)

Sugar — 1/4 cup (50 g)

Butter — 1/4 cup (60 g)

Orange zest — from 1 orange

Lemon zest — from 1 lemon

Rum — 1 tbsp (15 ml)

For brushing:

1 egg

A pinch of turmeric

A pinch of paprika

A little sunflower oil for greasing

You’ll also need: kitchen twine, a leaf-shaped cutter, a rolling pin.

To make sure our dough rises well, we need to activate the yeast — we’ll start by making a sponge (yeast starter).

Pour the milk — 2/3 cup (150 ml) — into a deep bowl and warm it to body temperature (you can test it with your finger), for example, in the microwave. Add sugar — 1/4 cup (50 g) — and fresh yeast — 0.6 oz (18 g). Crumble the yeast with your fingers and dissolve it in the milk along with the sugar.

Place the starter (sponge) in a warm place to rise. I like to use the oven for this, preheated to no more than 104°F (40°C). Let the sponge sit in the warmth until it starts to look like in the photo — it usually takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 1.5 hours.

Preparing the ingredients

To get lemon and orange zest, take a fine grater and rub a washed orange (or lemon) against it until no peel remains on the fruit.

Pumpkin purée can be made from fresh pumpkin or bought ready-made. You can watch our short video on how to make pumpkin purée here 🎥 👉https://youtube.com/shorts/YP9ZQRqAVlk

Making the dough

Sift the flour — 3 1/2 cups (450 g) — into a large bowl. Add 2 egg yolks, 2/3 cup (160 g) pumpkin purée, and 1/4 cup (50 g) sugar. Cut the butter — 1/4 cup (60 g) — into cubes and add it to the mixture. Knead the dough by hand or using a stand mixer.

Add the rum and zest to the dough. Knead again until well combined.

Transfer the dough to a bowl lightly greased with butter. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in a warm spot — ideally the same place where the yeast rose successfully, for example, in an oven preheated to no more than 104°F (40°C). Let it rest for 2 hours.

During these 2 hours, the dough should roughly double in size. Then, shape the dough into a ball again, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Shaping the rolls

Work with the dough like it’s playdough in school :) Kids often do this better than adults, so at this stage it’s great to have a little helper :)

Roll the dough into a cylinder, as shown in the photo. Cut the cylinder into 8–12 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball.

Set aside one of these dough pieces for making the tails and leaves.

Take some kitchen twine and tie the roll in a cross pattern, like in the photo. Don’t pull the twine too tight — the rolls will continue to rise.

Do this with each roll and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper lightly greased with oil. Cover with a cotton or linen towel and let them rest for about 15 minutes.

Attention! Don’t forget to leave some space between the rolls — they will rise in the oven.

Make the stems for the pumpkins

Take the piece of dough we set aside from the rolls. Break off small pieces and roll each into a little sausage shape (see photo). You need as many “legs” as you have rolls. Sprinkle each leg with cinnamon and place them on the baking sheet next to the rolls.

Prepare the glaze for the rolls

To give the rolls a more orange hue, take a pinch of turmeric and sweet paprika. Mix it with 1 egg and blend well. Brush each roll with this mixture, but do not brush over the twine!

Make the leaves

Roll out the remaining dough from the rolls and legs very thinly. Cut out leaf shapes using a leaf-shaped cutter. Sprinkle the leaves with cinnamon on both sides.

Baking

If there’s space on the baking sheet for the leaves, you can place them there (just not too close to the rolls). In this case, the leaves may bake faster than the rolls because they are thinner, so you’ll need to take them out of the oven earlier.

I didn’t have enough space, so I first baked the sheet with the rolls. While the rolls were cooling, I baked the leaves.

We bake at 180°C (about 350°F) until done.

Once the rolls have cooled slightly and can be handled, carefully remove the kitchen twine. I first cut the knots with scissors.

After that, carefully twist the "pumpkin stems" into the rolls.

You can stick the leaves into the rolls (mine had a pointed tip), or simply place them on the plate next to the rolls

Enjoy your delicious rolls!

You can also watch the full recipe in our video 👉 https://youtu.be/QDighsbhdKs

We’d be thrilled if you joined our family on YouTube by subscribing to our channel ❤️! 👉 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwXeQhRyzyn-2XJRxB355Hw