With the appearance of all kinds of squash at the grocery store this fall, I got excited to try a bread with acorn squash, my favorite. Initially, I was thinking to make a brioche, but the more I shopped for butter, the more I craved something a little lighter and easier to work with. So I decided to add to Breadtopia’s repertoire of recipes for versatile and fluffy Japanese-style milk breads with tangzhong. We already have milk bread recipes with refined flour with sourdough leavening, refined flour with yeast leavening, and whole wheat flour with sourdough leavening.

Now we have this fall-themed recipe that uses acorn squash for hydration, a little bit of whole wheat flour, and offers both yeast and sourdough instructions. Please note that you can use other squashes like butternut, honeynut, delicata, and more. I suspect spaghetti squash might call for pureeing with a food processor rather than mashing with a fork.

Don’t forget to toast and snack on the seeds. That might be the best part of fall squash season!

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This acorn squash milk bread has subtle and delicious flavors that work well with everything from savory sandwiches to French toast. The tangzhong method involves mixing and cooking a portion of the flour with milk, which makes the bread stay softer for longer, and that step only takes a few minutes.

Cinnamon toast

In the recipe below, I’ve incorporated the longer final proof from Benny’s (@benito in our forum) whole wheat hokkaido recipe and his baking strategy to remove the bread from the pan and drop the oven temperature for the last 10 minutes of the bake. That helps this tall dough get more structural integrity and golden color all around.

Flour Choices

In the recipe below, I make the tangzhong with rouge de bordeaux whole grain flour to add some tasty wheat flavor, and because heating up the flour softens the bran. This way whole wheat flour then comprises about 12% of the total flour weight, but it’s fine to use refined flour or another wheat variety in the tangzhong if you prefer.

You can also substitute whole grain flour into the main dough if desired. See Benny’s recipe for tips and additional ingredients to help make this bread with all whole wheat flour. I felt that the acorn squash added a good amount of fiber and nutrients to the dough, so I went with bread flour to get more of an orange pop of color in the crumb.

Vegan Substitutions

I’ve successfully made this bread with light olive oil instead of butter and oat milk instead of cow’s milk. However, I have not tried an egg substitute. Here is an article that offers ideas for alternatives to eggs if you want to make this bread entirely vegan.

Pan Size

The recipe is scaled for a small Pullman pan, which is 9x4x4 inches, and the dough is shaped in two staggered rows of 4 balls. You can shape the loaf in any number of ways though e.g. see Benny’s video for making a four-lobed loaf, or just roll it into a single tube and maybe even bake it with the Pullman pan lid on. Baking the dough as 8 rolls in a nine-inch round pan also works well; shorten the bake time to 30-35 minutes.

The volume of a small Pullman pan is 144 in³ = 9x4x4 If you have a different loaf pan, you can calculate the volume and scale up the dough as needed. That said, I’ve baked this same dough size in a medium loaf pan of 123 in³ = 9x5x2.75 and was fine without scaling. There is some wiggle room up and down in size.

Check out the Photo Gallery after the recipe for process pics.

Acorn Squash Milk Bread with Tangzhong

Here's a fluffy bread with a subtle acorn squash flavor. A slice toasted with butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon reads like dessert, but it also works for avocado toast and savory sandwiches. This bread is perfect for French toast too, though there's no rush to use it up because the tangzhong method slows the staling process.

Prep Time

1 hour, 30 minutes

Baking Time

1 hour

Total Time

2 hours, 30 minutes

Ingredients

SOURDOUGH VERSION

Sweet Stiff Starter

45g flour of your choice (5 Tbsp)
20g water (1 Tbsp + 1 tsp)
13g brown sugar (1 Tbsp)
15g starter (1 1/2 Tbsp)

Tangzhong

170g milk (3/4 cup)
30g whole wheat flour, I used rouge de bordeaux whole grain flour (1/4 cup)

Final Dough

all the Tangzhong
57g unsalted butter (4 Tbsp)
115g pureed cooked acorn or other squash (approx 1/2 cup)
1 large egg
340g bread flour (2 2/3 cups)
30g sugar (2 1/2 Tbsp)
5.5g salt (1 tsp)
all Stiff Sweet Starter

Pre-bake Dough Wash

1 egg beaten
1 Tbsp milk (14g)

Optional Post-bake Crust Wash

1 Tbsp butter (14g)

YEAST VERSION

Yeast Prep

7g instant yeast (2 tsp)
20g water (1 Tbsp + 1 tsp)
pinch of sugar

Tangzhong

170g milk (3/4 cup)
30g whole wheat flour, I used rouge de bordeaux whole grain flour (1/4 cup)

Final Dough

all the Tangzhong
57g unsalted butter (4 Tbsp)
115g pureed cooked acorn or other squash (approx 1/2 cup)
1 large egg
385g bread flour (3 cups)
45g sugar, brown or white or a mix (3 1/2 Tbsp)
5.5g salt (1 tsp)
all Stiff Sweet Starter

Pre-bake Dough Wash

1 egg beaten
1 Tbsp milk (14g)

Optional Post-bake Crust Wash

1 Tbsp butter (14g)

Instructions

Squash Prep

Bake or steam the squash until fully cooked. Let it cool and then mash or puree it. I cut an acorn squash in half, removed the seeds, and roasted it for about 25 minutes with bread I was baking at 450-500F.

Sweet Stiff Starter / Yeast Prep

Mix and knead the starter ingredients, then press into a clear straight-walled container with space for doubling.
Let expand at a warm room temperature if possible. This can take 6-12 hours depending on your initial starter strength and ambient temp.
If making the instant yeast version, combine the Yeast Prep ingredients and let the yeast bloom for about 5 minutes before mixing the dough. The rest of the process will be the same, except plan for only 1-3 hours for the first rise, and 1-2 hours for the second rise.

Tangzhong

In a small saucepan, whisk together the milk and flour. Stirring constantly, cook for a couple of minutes on med-low heat until thickened.
Remove the pan from the heat and add the butter to the pan unless you're planning to hand mix the dough. Then simply let the tangzhong cool and have the butter warm up to room temperature on its own.

Dough Mixing and Bulk Fermentation

See the Notes for Hand-mixing Instructions
Whisk the egg and the squash puree into the tangzhong-butter mixture. Set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt.
Add the ripe sweet stiff starter, tearing it into 5-6 portions as you add it to the bowl. The bloomed yeast mixture can be poured directly into the mixer.
Now pour in the tangzhong-butter-squash-egg mixture.
With the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed for a minute, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then mix on medium speed for about 10 minutes. The dough will become smoother and stronger. After the first 5 minutes of mixing, if the dough feels like wet frosting, add more flour 1 Tbsp at a time. But note that at the correct hydration, the dough should still feel sticky and soft. Only with more mixing and the help of the oiled bowl, can you form it into a ball.
Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, folding the dough into a ball and flipping it smooth-side up.
Cover and let rise for 6-12 hours until it has almost doubled, approx 75% expansion. If you need to refrigerate the dough, expect longer rise times. At warm temps, my dough rose to this amount in 6 hours.

Shaping and Final Proof

Lightly grease your pan.
Scrape the dough out onto a clean countertop. There's no need for flour. Press the dough into a circle, divide it in 8 pieces, and roll the pieces into balls. Flour your hands if needed.
Place the balls in your loaf pan in two staggered rows of four. You can tilt the pan as needed to make the rolls compress if more space is needed.
Cover and let the dough proof for 4-6 hours or longer if your house is cool or you refrigerate the dough. The dough should be about 1 cm from the lip of the pan when finished proofing--more than doubling and quite puffy. My dough needed close to 6 hours for this expansion.

Baking

Preheat your oven to 350F.
Brush the dough with the egg-milk wash and bake for 50 minutes at 350F. Then remove the bread from the pan and bake 10 minutes more at 325F. The internal temperature when finished should be at least 190F.
After the bread is completely cooled, store it in beeswax wrap or a plastic bag for a week or longer. Do not refrigerate. The bread can also be sliced, wrapped, and frozen.

Notes

Mixing and Kneading by Hand

Mix all of the ingredients except the softened butter in a bowl using a spatula, dough whisk, or by hand.

Let the dough rest 10 minutes, then transfer it to your countertop and slap and fold the dough. Begin adding the butter 1 Tbsp at a time, slapping and folding between butter additions until the butter is incorporated and the dough stays together.

Now follow the instructions above from when you transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and start the bulk fermentation.