These pumpkin rolls with salted maple butter are over the top wonderful for a holiday dinner. They're also perfect for sandwiching leftovers the next day. 

You can pull the dough for these rolls together and set it aside in the morning to rise while you are assembling the rest of the holiday meal. You can even make the dough a day in advance, and let it rise in the refrigerator. The rolls themselves only take about 15 to 17 minutes to bake, which is perfect timing while your turkey or roast is resting.

These pumpkin buns are soft and moist. While they have pumpkin puree in the dough, they only very faintly taste like pumpkin.

These pumpkin rolls are so light and airy. I'm really happy with their flavor and texture, and will definitely be making them again. I used them for chicken salad sandwiches, and they were terrific. I also spread them with the maple butter for breakfast. These things were amazing.

The only negative to these pumpkin buns is that some kids may turn their nose up at their color, assuming that they taste like pumpkin pie. Well... they don't taste like pumpkin pie! Even with the added spices.

I have a friend who won't try anything with pumpkin in it, even though her signature dish is sweet potato pie. What the? She claims it's the texture... even though she's never even tasted pumpkin!!! I can understand this sort of aversion when it comes to eating escargot, ants, or crickets... but pumpkin? She's missing out on pretty much the best soft dinner rolls.

The pumpkin adds a such a wonderful texture to the bread. I have found that enriched bread usually loses its freshness pretty quickly, but these buns stay moist and fresh, similarly to potato rolls, even though they contain honey, egg, and butter.

These rolls are accompanied by an optional salted maple butter, which I highly recommend.

Some hints on making these pumpkin rolls:

1. The original recipe calls for 70 grams of water, but I found that adding more was necessary, even though it was a rainy day when I made these. Be sure to add the additional water early on, or your dough might slosh around in the extra water. This is not a deal killer, but you will have to gather up the dough a few times to make sure the dough hook catches the dough and brings it together. 
2. During each phase of incorporating the butter, I pulled the dough out of the mixer, spread the portion of butter over the dough and formed it into a ball. Then I returned it to the mixer and kneaded it in phases. I've always had trouble incorporating butter into already cohesive dough, and this seems to work for me. If you still have trouble with buttery dough, pull the entire thing out of the mixer, and add it back in pieces with the mixer running. This will produce a smooth dough. 
3. You can form this dough into little pumpkins. 

For some reason, I have lots of bread and rolls with pumpkin puree on this blog, including these cranberry pumpkin rolls, these wonderful dinner rolls, these cinnamon pumpkin rolls, this sourdough pumpkin milk bread, and pretty much the most impressive artisan stout, rye, and pumpkin sourdough.

By the way, if you need something to make with the leftover pumpkin puree, how about a pumpkin martini!

Pumpkin Rolls with Salted Maple Butter

Ingredients

• 500 grams bread flour
• 10 grams instant yeast (I used Red Star Platinum)
• 8 grams salt
• 200 grams pumpkin puree
• 1 large egg
• 50 grams honey
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 70 grams lukewarm water, plus more as needed
• 50 grams unsalted butter, softened

For the Salted Maple Butter

• 1 stick of salted butter, softened
• 35 grams of pure maple syrup

Instructions

1. Place the bread flour, yeast, salt, pumpkin, egg, honey, spices, and water into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until the dough just comes together. Add more water as needed to achieve a tacky, but not sticky dough. Knead the dough for five minutes.
2. Add the butter in three stages and knead for three more minutes or so, until the butter is incorporated (see hints).
3. Shape the dough into a ball and place it into an oiled bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about an hour, until doubled.
4. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces (I like to use a scale), and shape each piece into a ball. Place each ball on a parchment lined quarter sheet pan (9" by 13") in a 4 by 3 pattern. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise until puffy, about an hour. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
5. Bake the rolls for about 17 minutes, until golden. Serve warm, or cool on a wire rack. Serve with the salted maple butter.
6. To make the maple butter, beat the butter and syrup together and then scoop into a dish, cover, and chill.

Yield: 12 rolls

This recipe was adapted from The Weekend Bakery, and is this month's recipe for the Avid Baker's Challenge.