Pumpkin Focaccia Bread

We are deep into Halloween season and I've got a fun and easy Halloween breadscape pumpkin focaccia for you! As soon as I saw this on Instagram I knew I wanted to make it. All you need is my big bubble focaccia recipe, a small pumpkin, onion and sage and you've got one of the most delightful and cute Halloween foods!

I saw this pumpkin focaccia by Camilla Chamignon on thefeedfeed and it looked so cute and simple! I would have loved a smaller and more orange pumpkin but this one was small enough at 500g or 1.1lbs. You can buy bright orange ones that go on sale around Halloween but they honestly don't taste amazing. I bought some last year for decoration and then cooked them and they were a bit bitter and tasteless. I bought my mini pumpkin from an Indian grocery and produce store.

The idea behind this is that you slice the pumpkin into thin wedges and then recreate the ridged pumpkin look using slices in graduating size order. Start with the larger wedges on the bottom and the finish with the smallest wedges on top. It's very easy to recreate and honestly would also look great on a pizza too if focaccia isn't really your thing.

Other Halloween Bread Recipes You May Like

• Halloween Focaccia
• Hallowe'en Scream Swirl Bread
• Caterpillar Pesto Buns
• Red Velvet “Intestines” Cinnamon Rolls

I feel like home ownership is full of surprises and suddenly you find yourself handling things that you never ever considered as a renter. And annual pest control is one of them. We have a really lovely exterminator (or pestie as they call themselves) called Nat from Pesty Girls in Marrickville. We liked her as soon as we met. It is a very male dominated field but she is super analytical and forensic in her thinking and training. Honestly I think we are so lucky we found her. I was making this focaccia one day when she arrived at our house.

She told me about how the day before she had been at a house and it ended up very Halloween-y. The police were involved and there was a dead body under a house. "There were police everywhere," she said eyes widening recalling the scene.

Pesties are used to getting in tight spaces and crawling under houses and in ceilings. It's no work for the claustrophobic and honestly I don't think I could do it. She and her two trainees got under the floorboards of one house. She shimmied down and look to one side and couldn't believe her eyes. Facing her directly was a human skeleton! It was lying back underneath the floorboards but it's head was tilted towards her.

She has had decades of experience and this wasn't her first time but her underlings were terrified. The current owners knew nothing about a body buried underneath a house (rat skeletons are common, humans less so but not unheard of) so they called the police who went under the floorboards and they investigated.

Thankfully it turned out to be a Halloween skeleton, perhaps a joke from the previous owners. In the past she has found a number of things: bags of cash, children's toys but this was a first! And when Mr NQN heard about this he suggested that we leave our little handmade Halloween coffin under our house for the next owners!

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever found anything strange in your house or apartment?

Pumpkin Focaccia Bread

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

• 1 quantity focaccia dough (see big bubble focaccia recipe here) make 3 days ahead of baking time
• 2-3 tablespoons Extra virgin olive oil
• 1 small pumpkin (250g-500g/0.5-1.1lb)
• 1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly into half moon rainbows
• 4 small clusters of sage leaves

Step 1 - Line the base of a large 28x22x7cm or 11x8.7x2.8inch baking dish with parchment and drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Spread out the dough in the tin, cover and allow to rise for 3-4 hours or until very puffy.

Step 2 - Preheat oven to 220C/440F fan forced. Cut the pumpkin in half and peel the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds. Slice the half pumpkin thinly into crescents. My pumpkin was 500g/1.1lbs and I just used half of it. Match up the pieces to create 3-4 pumpkins on a chopping board (big pieces on the bottom and graduating to smaller pieces on top). It's easier to match these on the chopping board than on the dough itself.

Step 3 - Place red onion around the pumpkin and add sage leaves. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and bake for 25 minutes. Allow to rest for 20 minutes before slicing.