Pumpkin Soda Bread

A quick and easy Autumnal Pumpkin Soda Bread that requires no yeast, kneading or proving. A perfect love food hate waste recipe to use up pumpkin flesh before you carve your Jack-O-Lantern. We really do need to realise that pumpkins are a valuable source of food and not just for decoration.

The second of my pumpkin recipes for 2018 urging you to eat as well as carve these wonderful orange fruits! (yes they are fruits not vegetables) I'm really delighted that my post about where to pick a pumpkin in Scotland has proved to be so popular. I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the places featured have now sold out so please do double check before any last minute journeys to procure pumpkins. A sheet with a selection of my pumpkin recipes was available to visitors at Udny, Arnprior, Kilduff and Westerton Pumpkins and Pumpkin Soda Bread was one of the recipes included so I'm hopefull that some pumpkin pickers may already have given it a try. 

You really don't need very much pumpkin flesh to make my soda bread and this is the best way to remove it and still allow you to carve a Jack-O-Lantern. 

Cut the top off your pumpkin then scoop out the innards (but keep the seeds). Removing as much of the flesh as you can will give you plenty to cook with and will also make carving so much easier as the walls will be thinner. I've found that the easiest way to extract the flesh is to use a melon baller. A grapefruit knife also works well as does a pumpkin scraper or if nothing else is available a large spoon or sharp knife will do the job. 

I've combined my modern Scottish pumpkin with an ancient grain which I learnt more about on my recent trip to Orkney. Bere is a six row barley which has been grown in Orkney for thousands of years. Barony Mill is the only working water wheel in Orkney and the only one in the world milling bere. If you can't get hold of Beremeal substitute with wholemeal flour. Likewise if you'd prefer a sweet bread to savour swap out the smoked paprika for pumpkin spice.

Pumpkin Soda Bread

200g Orkney Beremeal (or wholemeal flour)

300g plain flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp caster sugar

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp Smoked Paprika

350ml buttermilk (or add 1Tbsp lemon juice to regular milk)

150g grated Pumpkin

Handful of Pumpkin seeds

Preheat the oven to 220c

Put a large casserole dish (Pyrex or cast iron) and its lid into the oven.

In a large bowl mix the flours salt, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and smoked paprika together and add the grated Pumpkin.

If not using buttermilk, add the lemon juice to the milk and mix together before pouring into the bowl with the flour mix.

Working quickly bring the mixture together as a soft dough shaping it into a shallow round loaf about 4cm thick.

Remove the hot casserole dish from the oven and sprinkle the inside lightly with flour then lower in the dough.

Brush the top with milk and sprinkle on some pumpkin seeds.

Cover the loaf with the lid and return to the oven and bake for 50 minutes to an hour. (If you have a thermometer the internal temperature should be between 88 and 93c)

Remove from the oven and leave in the dish for for 5 minutes before turning the Pumpkin Soda Bread out onto a cooling rack.

Eat on the day of baking or toast the next day.

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