Orange Pumpkin Clovers

Happy December..can you believe it's December?!?! Vegas weather has finally turned truly chilly all day instead of just in the mornings, Brooklyn has become a desert princess and absolutely refused to step even an inch outside into the cold damp today and I wept tears of joy knowing that it absolutely had to be snowing somewhere within 30 miles of here.  And I was right...I saw some snow blanketed mountains off in the distance as I drove to work.  Magical snow covered mountains.  Yes indeedy.

Is December too late to post another pumpkin recipe?  Hopefully not, because I really thought these rolls were kind of fun.  I'd cut this recipe out of Gourmet magazine a few years ago but like all recipes that are cut out, they go into a lovely binder to looked at when new recipes are added, but never utilized for making anything.  This recipe is a rare exception...just took me 2 years to get to it.  

These rolls are a basic soft dinner roll with the addition of some orange zest and some canned pumpkin.  Truthfully, they were more pumpkin and orange in scent than in flavor, but there was a slight mellow zesty flavor to them and the pumpkin made them super soft and moist. 

The original recipe called for making these rolls into clovers and I left those directions in place in the recipe below.  While there's nothing quite like a nice chewy ciabatta crust, I prefer dinner rolls to be squishy soft.  If I wasn't afraid of being deemed selfish, I'd steal the middle roll each time. And while clovers are much cuter than regular ole rolls, they have a lot more crust which isn't all that squishy and soft. 

I used the last egg for a pie instead of a wash so no shiny tops here, but still a fun and different type of roll recipe.

Formerly fierce snow dog

Sun worshipping desert princess.  

Orange Pumpkin Clovers
Gourmet Magazine February 2009

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted, divided
1 pkg active dry yeast (approx 2 tsp)
1/4 cup warm milk (105–115°F)
1 tablespoon honey
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour plus more for kneading and dusting
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup canned pure pumpkin
2 large eggs, divided, plus 1 yolk
1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon water

1. Butter muffin cups with 1 Tbsp melted butter.
2. Stir together yeast, warm milk, and honey in a large bowl and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn’t foam, start over with new yeast.)
3. Mix flour, salt, pumpkin, 1 whole egg, yolk, orange zest and juice, and remaining 5 Tbsp butter into yeast mixture with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a soft dough forms. Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead, dusting surface and your hands with just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, until dough is elastic and smooth, 6 to 8 minutes. Form dough into a ball.
4. Put dough in an oiled large bowl and turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
5. Punch down dough (do not knead), then halve. Roll half of dough on a lightly floured surface with lightly floured hands into a 12-inch-long log (keep remaining half covered with plastic wrap).
6. Cut log into 6 equal pieces, then cut each piece into thirds. Roll each piece into a 1-inch ball by cupping your hand and pushing dough against work surface as you roll in a circular motion. Put 3 balls side by side in each of 6 muffin cups.
7. Make more rolls with remaining dough in same manner. Cover rolls with a kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until dough is about 1 inch above rim of muffin cups, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
8. Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.
9. Whisk together remaining egg and water and brush on tops of rolls. (You will have leftover egg wash.)
10. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer rolls to a rack and cool at least 20 minutes.