Saturday, September 18, 2010

Pumpkin butter- part 1

I was thinking about pumpkin butter this morning. Since I've still got 8 galeux d'eysines left and more on the way, I decided to tackle it. Of course, government recommendations on canning now say that you shouldn't home can pumpkin butter, for a variety of reasons but I've also seen plenty of people who are doing it successfully. So, I decided to give it a whirl. I thought I'd give a crock pot recipe a try.
First to select a pumpkin. Since the number of warts on these pumpkins indicate the ripeness (and sugar content), I thought I'd use the ripest, wartiest pumpkin we have. It also happened to be the biggest one we've got.
This bad boy weighed in at 26.8 pounds!
Sliced in half, it looks like hearts.
J16 scooped the pulp after it was baked- 19 cups.
The recipe I decided to use was easy to figure out proportions.
For each 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin puree
add:
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/8 tsp nutmeg
3/8 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Put it all in a crockpot and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours or overnight.
12 cups of pumpkin puree and the fixins
Stirred up and set to go overnight
I'll can it tomorrow. But, I'll tell you, it is already TASTY!!!!! I can't wait to see how it turns out. I may add in some vanilla since I am a huge vanilla fan. So far, it tastes like pumpkin pie. Mmmmm... pumpkin pie in a jar.

5 comments:

  1. Those pumpkins are amazing!!! I had a few volunteers inside the old chicken coop area and was able to can up a bit from them. But the cinderella pumpkins I planted didn't do so well. Did you save seeds from yours? If so, may I have a few???

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  2. Maria- I have been saving seeds. I need to do some research, though. I also have pattypan squash and cucumbers in my garden and I know curcurbits are notorious for cross pollination. I didn't hand pollinate any pumpkins so I don't know what I've got.
    Erin- OMG!! The whole house smells heavenly this morning!
    Judy

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  3. Oh, it looks so good! I just wish I had a pumpkin to use.

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  4. Those pumpkings look like something you'd see in Martha Stewarts magazing "Living". They are just GREAT!! Are you going to make a small pumpkin pie? maybe just a wee one? to see how it tastes? Makes my mouth water from here. Hope the canning process goes well!! ...debbie

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