Recipe: All Soul's Day Sweet Pumpkin Bread (Pane Dolce di Zucca) - makes 3 loaves

SWEET PUMPKIN BREAD (PANE DOLCE DI ZUCCA)

"These little round loaves are more like coffee cake than bread. They're the color of dark amber. Sweet pumpkin, honey and raisins make them moist and dense. Lemon and rosemary bring an elegant, exotic quality to the breads even though they're the essence of farmhouse baking. Whenever home bakers in the country wanted something special, they just amended their everyday bread doughs with sweeteners and flavorings they had on hand-like grape syrup, honey, sweet squash and rosemary.

This pumpkin bread is a specialty of Chioggia, a town of farmers and fishermen on the Adriatic coast below Venice. They eat it on November 2, All Souls' Day. A lot of people keep pumpkin bread on the sideboard, wrapped in a linen napkin, ready to be sliced and served to callers along with homemade sweet wine. I serve the bread for brunch with a selection of jams, butter and cream cheese. It makes a great house gift. Toasted and buttered, this is the best late afternoon snack."

2 pounds sugar pumpkin or butternut squash
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Shredded zest of 4 large lemons
3 tightly packed tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons (2 envelopes) active dry yeast
1 cup water, at room temperature, divided use
1 cup honey
1 cup milk, at room temperature
1 cup (5 ounces) whole wheat bread flour (preferably organic)
1 tablespoon salt
6 to 7 cups (30 to 35 ounces) unbleached white bread flour, divided use (preferably organic)
1 cup golden raisins, soaked in warm water 10 minutes and drained
About 3 cups cornmeal, divided use
3 cups ice cubes

To roast the pumpkin or squash, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Cut the pumpkin or squash lengthwise in half and scoop out the seeds. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and lightly oil it. Roast the pumpkin or squash flesh side down 1 hour, or until easily pierced with a knife. Cool. Scoop out the pumpkin or squash flesh. Puree in a blender or food processor. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of puree.

In a small skillet, combine the olive oil, lemon zest, and rosemary and warm over medium heat only long enough to be aromatic, 2 to 3 minutes. Immediately remove from the heat and cool.

In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer or other large bowl, combine the yeast, a little of the water, and a few drops of the honey. Let stand until bubbly, about 5 minutes. Then add the remaining water and honey, the milk, the herb blend, whole wheat flour, the pumpkin or squash puree, salt, and 2 1/2 cups of the white flour (the raisins go in before the final rise). Beat with the paddle attachment 8 minutes at low speed, or beat with a spoon.

Gradually work in another 3 to 4 cups white flour. When the dough becomes too heavy to stir, switch to the dough hook, or turn the dough out onto a floured board and knead in the flour with the help of a pastry scraper. Work in enough flour to make a soft (but not slack), very elastic dough with some stickiness. (Better a too soft dough than a too heavy one.) Continue to knead 15 minutes by machine or by hand. The dough will still be sticky. Set the dough in a large oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature until tripled in bulk, about 3 hours.

Punch down the dough and knead in the drained raisins. Shape the dough into 3 balls of equal size. Generously cover a baking peel or cookie sheet with half the cornmeal and set the breads on it, spacing them 2-inches apart. Sprinkle with a few spoonfuls of white flour and cover with a towel. Let rise only until 1 1/2 times their original size, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Sprinkle a large cookie sheet generously with the remaining cornmeal and set aside.

Meanwhile, slip a large shallow pan onto the oven's bottom rack. Set a second rack above it. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Gently slip the risen breads onto the prepared cookie sheet. With a sharp paring knife, cut an X into each loaf. Set them in the oven. Turn the ice cubes into the hot shallow pan, stand back, and immediately close the oven door. Bake 30 minutes. Turn the heat down to 350 degrees F, and bake 20 minutes more. With oven mitts, lift the breads off their sheet and set them directly on the oven rack. Bake another 15 minutes, or until the bottoms of the loaves sound hollow when tapped. Cool breads on a rack.

You can hold them at room temperature several days, loosely wrapped. Tightly wrapped, the breads freeze well up to 3 months.

COOK TO COOK:
From start to finish, and with little actual effort, sweet pumpkin bread takes about 5 hours. It could be started in the evening, refrigerated overnight during its first rise and finished by early afternoon the next day. Use organic ingredients for this bread if at all possible.

Makes 3 (7-inch) round loaves
Source: The Italian Country Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper