One Oven: Kabocha Squash Cinnamon Rolls

I did a lot this week.

I finished a book (while trying to ignore my messy apartment).

I officially switched from working at a winery (and occasionally a food truck) to working at a pasta restaurant. Glamour shots from my ride back from work below.

Last night, I made myself go out after work to shake out some worries and loosen up. I danced so much that my neck, shoulders, knees, and hamstrings all ached this morning.

So I made cinnamon rolls and used up the last bit of squash in the fridge.

This has happened before, if any of you remember this post from a while back. There's a definite correlation between how frequently I go dancing and how frequently I make cinnamon rolls. In any case, this time I remembered to take pictures during the actual mixing and rolling process.

Hello, Pot.

We start with the squash. In case you aren't familiar with Kabocha, here's a handy guide. I find the sweeter, orange kabocha the absolute best squash to puree because its flesh seems to have very few strings.

Since we're making cinnamon rolls, I don't care how much butter goes into the greasing of the squash for the roasting. Not that I usually care how much butter I consume. That happens to be a weakness of mine.

Clean up the apartment while the squash is roasting.

Gorgeously roasted, time to sieve it!

This is what happens when you mash roasted Kabocha through a fine sieve. How cool is that??

Okay. Squash sieved. Now the dough.

I'm working from this recipe from Joy the Baker, and this one from the Sprouted Kitchen. JTB for the basic roll recipe, and SK for adjusted moisture amounts.

First up, milk, butter, and sugar: heat on the stove until warm and sugar is dissolved.

Then yeast.

Is that the milky way? No? Are you sure?

Then flour. (Wait - I need to talk about this flour.)

I am so excited about this. For months I've been mixing store-bought all-purpose flour with the rougher, grainier soft and hard red wheat flours from Longspell Point Farms. BUT, now I've got my hands on their fine, lovely, red wheat pastry flour. I love buying local.

Now squash! In!

And a little more flour! Possibly I didn't follow directions to the letter, but I needed a little more than four cups to get my dough to Joy's consistency in her recipe. This could also be due to the flour's lower water-retension capacity.

Find a warm spot... hmmm, this'll do. Now wait an hour.

After an hour, it didn't really look too risen, but that's okay. I forged ahead anyway and mixed in the rest of the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.