It’s almost Thanksgiving! This is one of my favorite holidays, simply because families across the country gather together to eat the same meal. If you’re like us, you’ve started thinking about what you’ll serve to your guests for Thanksgiving dinner, and this year, I’ve decided to make Pumpkin Dinner Rolls, adapted from our milk bread recipe.
A Fall Version of Our Popular Milk Bread
Since everyone loves our Milk Bread recipe, I thought, why not turn it into a delicious and festive dinner roll? If you love buttery, soft parker house rolls you’ll love these! The texture of Asian milk bread is tender and fluffy, and it lends itself well to savory and sweet applications (check out our Chinese bakery bun recipes for more ideas).
These buns are closer to our classic Milk Bread recipe, with the addition of steamed pumpkin puree to add some extra vitamins, autumnal color, and a very subtle flavor. If you want to accentuate the pumpkin flavor, you can add a couple pinches of cinnamon and nutmeg to the dough.
Canned vs. Fresh Pumpkin Puree
When it comes to the pureed pumpkin, you can use canned, but I like to make my own. It’s super easy to steam pumpkin, and I think it gives these rolls better flavor and color.
With all of the decorative pumpkins out there, though, it’s hard to know which ones will work best for baked goods. We used a Long Island Cheese Pumpkin, but others like Jarrahdales and Blue Hubbards work well too!
A Family Approved Recipe!
These Pumpkin Dinner Rolls are family-approved–we slathered them with butter, melted cheese on them, and made mini turkey sandwiches. (Perks—or occupational hazard—of food blogging is that we’ve made a total of 3 turkeys this fall, and it’s not even Thanksgiving day yet!)
I hope your family likes them as much as mine did, and that they impress your guests at your Thanksgiving table!
Pumpkin Dinner Rolls: Recipe Instructions
If you are making homemade pumpkin puree, simply steam about ½ pound of any baking pumpkin for 15 minutes, pour out the liquid from the steamer, and scoop the pumpkin flesh out. Mash the pumpkin with a fork until smooth.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, add ingredients in the following order: pumpkin puree, heavy cream, milk, egg, sugar, cake flour, bread flour, yeast, and salt. When measuring the flour, tap the measuring cup against a hard surface to ensure there are no air pockets.
Tip!
If you always find yourself short on scallions, garlic, and ginger, freeze them! Check out our instructions. It not only ensures you always have them close at hand, it also reduces waste—no more throwing away wilted scallions, fuzzy ginger, and sprouted garlic. It’s also incredibly convenient. Even my mother, who has a Chinese supermarket at her doorstep, has a bag of frozen chopped scallion and a bag of frozen sliced ginger in her freezer.
Turn the mixer on to the lowest setting, and let it go for 15 minutes–stopping occasionally to push the dough down off the hook. If you’re in a humid climate and the dough is too sticky, feel free to add a little more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If you don’t have a mixer and would like to knead the dough by hand, extend the kneading time by 10 minutes.
After 15 minutes of mixing, the dough is ready for proofing. Cover the bowl with a damp towel, and place in a warm spot for 1 hour. I proofed the dough in my oven (I had the oven on rapid proof for 5 minutes, turned the oven off, and then closed the oven door). The dough will grow to 1.5x its original size.
In the meantime, grease a square 11×11” or 9×13” baking pan on all sides with a stick of cold butter.
After an hour of proofing, put the dough back in the mixer and stir for another 5 minutes to get rid of any air bubbles.
Next, divide the dough into 16 equal pieces on a lightly floured surface, with the help of your kitchen scale. Shape each piece of dough into a smooth ball and arrange them on the pan with about half an inch of space between them on all sides.
Once shaped, cover and proof for another hour until the buns grow to 1.5X their original size.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Brush the risen dough with egg wash, and sprinkle with the raw pumpkin seeds.
Place your pumpkin dinner rolls in the middle of the oven and bake for 16-18 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Take the buns out of the oven and immediately brush them with the sugar water to give them a really great shine, sweetness, and rich color.
You can just pull them apart gently, once they’ve cooled down a bit.
Serve these Pumpkin dinner rolls warm! (Note, these warm up really well in the microwave!)
Pumpkin Dinner Rolls
Ingredients
- ½ cup pumpkin puree (about 120g)
- ⅔ cup heavy cream (158 ml, at room temperature)
- ⅓ cup milk (75 ml, at room temperature)
- 1 large egg (at room temperature)
- ⅓ cup sugar (115g)
- ½ cup cake flour (70g)
- 3½ cups bread flour (500g)
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast (10g)
- 1½ teaspoons salt (7g)
- Egg wash (1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water)
- 1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
- Simple syrup (optional: 2 teaspoons of sugar dissolved in 2 teaspoons hot water)
Instructions
- If you are making homemade pumpkin puree, simply steam about ½ pound of any baking pumpkin for 15 minutes, pour out the liquid from the steamer, and scoop the pumpkin flesh out. Mash the pumpkin with a fork until smooth.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, add ingredients in the following order: pumpkin puree, heavy cream, milk, egg, sugar, cake flour, bread flour, yeast, and salt. When measuring the flour, tap the measuring cup against a hard surface to ensure there are no air pockets.
- Turn the mixer on to the lowest setting, and let it go for 15 minutes–stopping occasionally to push the dough down off the hook. If you’re in a humid climate and the dough is too sticky, feel free to add a little more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If you don’t have a mixer and would like to knead the dough by hand, extend the kneading time by 10 minutes.
- After 15 minutes of mixing, the dough is ready for proofing. Cover the bowl with a damp towel, and place in a warm spot for 1 hour. I proofed the dough in my oven (I had the oven on rapid proof for 5 minutes, turned the oven off, and then closed the oven door). The dough will grow to 1.5x its original size.
- In the meantime, grease a square 11×11” pan or 9×13” pan on all sides with a stick of cold butter.
- After an hour of proofing, put the dough back in the mixer and stir for another 5 minutes to get rid of any air bubbles.
- Next, divide the dough into 16 equal pieces on a lightly floured surface, with the help of your kitchen scale. Shape each piece of dough into a smooth ball and arrange them on the pan with about half an inch of space between them on all sides. Once shaped, cover and proof for another hour until the buns grow to 1.5X their original size.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Brush the risen dough with egg wash, and sprinkle with the raw pumpkin seeds.
- Place in the middle of the oven and bake for 16-18 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Take the buns out of the oven and immediately brush them with the sugar water to give them a really great shine, sweetness, and rich color. Serve warm! (Note, these warm up really well in the microwave!)
Hi thanks for this gorgeous recipe! How should I store them over night? I made them tonight but will be serving them tomorrow for Thanksgiving dinner.
Hi Elisha, after the rolls are completely cooled, store them covered overnight. Happy Thanksgiving!
Call me crazy, but I added a few pinches of Chinese five spice powder. Really amazing. Thanks for this easy recipe- I have a feeling this will become my bread recipe for eternity.
Really?! I have to give it a try. Thank you, April.
My rolls came out much bigger than what is shown in your picture. I could have easily made 24 rolls. Why did that happen?
Thanks for all your wonderful recipes!
Hi Saufay, your buns might be over-proofed. How did they taste though? That’s more important.
They taste awesome!!!!
Thank you!!
Both thumbs up!!!
I accidentally left a my review under the Milk Bread, but this is what I made. I put everything in the bread machine, cold, right out of the fridge and turned it on. Came back later to a very high and fluffy bread, breathtakingly gorgeous orange (but not sweet and not much pumpkin flavor at all). Did not do the topping part. Tasted wonderful, and highly recommend. Would be perfect for leftover turkey and ham sammies
Thank you so much, Anna!
Hello! This recipe looks scrumptious – I have already done some of your recipes and always with good results :-)
I have one questions about the yeast quantity. I prefer to bake with fresh yeast. According to my conversion table 11 gr of dry yeast = 33 gr of fresh yeast – which is a huge amount for that quantity of flour.
Usually I use about 10 gr of fresh yeast every 400 of flour.
Would you be able to give me an indication concerning the quantity of yeast if I use fresh yeast here?
Thank you!
Best,
Francesca
I have never used fresh yeast, so it’s hard to say. But I did check online, fresh yeast is like using 2.5x active dry, which should be about 28 grams. Hope it’s correct.
Here are your rolls on a 2015 cover.
http://www.takingonmagazines.com/magazine-round-up-taste-of-home-magazine-septemberoctober-2015/
Wow, Chavella, that is pretty amazing! I wonder if this bun is also a milk bread dough like mine.
Wow! Looks good. I will try! Thank you.
Thank you so much, Abby!
Can’t wait to make these gorgeous rolls. I am going to load everything in my trusty bread machine, the proportions seem to be very similar to the ones I use for regular bread. Yum!
Hi Mila, I once used a bread machine to mix and proof the milk bread dough, and I found that the bread machine got too hot for proofing. I think it’s best to use the bread machine for mixing this dough only. :-)
Hi Judy,
I made these rolls during Thanksgiving three times. I proofed the dough in the bread machine without a problem. I used 1 cup of half-n-half for the cream/milk mixture. Fantastic rolls! They freeze and rewarm nicely as well.
Agree, Mila, these are pretty good :-) Thank you for your lovely comment.
Judy, those pumpkin dinner rolls are absolutely gorgeous! They would be a spectacular addition to anyone’s Thanksgiving table! Everyone who sees those and reads that recipe will fantasize about being a guest at your Thanksgiving celebration. Those beat any Thanksgiving treat I’ve seen in glossy magazine spreads.
You are so sweet, Wynn! Thank you so much for your lovely words.
Made the Lemon Grass Chicken last night. Great dish. Putting the rice into the left over sauce is beyond and very dangerous. Will make it again soon.
Thank you for leaving us a comment, Don! Please say Hi to Lisa.