Recipes
Second course
Roast
Dark & spicy roasted squash "bread"

Dark & spicy roasted squash "bread"

Roast

Roasting

Gloriously and unusually spiced with garam masala and ginger, this moist, dark, sweet loaf starts with roasted squash and ends with a lashing of crunchy poppy and black chia seeds. Inspiration came from the squash bread I tasted at Kelsie Kerr’s Standard Fare Kitchen and Pantry in West Berkeley. My version includes buckwheat flour and is gluten-free and entirely whole-grain, if you choose brown rice flour instead of white rice flour along with the buckwheat flour therein. At first, I admit that I was intrigued but uncertain about the hints of cumin (one of the spices in garam masala) in a sweet baked good—then I couldn’t get enough of it. I made one loaf with a somewhat cumin-forward garam masala from my favorite local purveyor, Oaktown Spice, and another with homemade garam masala from Nik Sharma’s book, Season. Nik’s blend is lighter on the cumin and a tad more generous with the cardamom. Both loaves had fans and both disappeared in a flash. Although it’s called "bread," this loaf is actually a quick bread, sometimes called tea loaf—but really a cake baked in a loaf pan! (I used to think this bread versus cake conceit was understood—that banana bread and pumpkin bread and persimmon bread and gingerbread were all actually cakes shaped like breads—but maybe not?)