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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Roast and Puree a Carving Pumpkin, Take 2



Now that I know carving pumpkin puree used in pumpkin pie works out very well I wonder what else I can do with the remaining 10 cups from the first pumpkin. Meanwhile, the other pumpkins have no plans of finding apartments means I should get to work on pureeing a second one.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Wash the pumpkin exterior.


Cut the pumpkin in half.


Scrape the seeds and stringy stuff out before turning the pumpkin halves, cut-sides down, on an oiled baking sheet. Trim the stem (top) and bottom ends as necessary to get the halves to fit on the sheet as necessary.


Roast the pumpkin at 350°F until the pumpkin is fork tender and the majority of the skin is blistered.

I roasted this pumpkin about 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Drain off the resulting pumpkin juice/water if appropriate.


Peel the skin off with a butter knife or spoon. Use a more aggressive tool if necessary.


Slice the pumpkin or cut into small cubes before blending/grinding and pureeing in a blender.


Yield: 12 cups from a pumpkin that, guessing, weighed about 10 pounds.


This was much easier than the first time. The increased temperature, 350°F instead of 325°F, helped move things along and the skin was much easier to peel. I'm not sure why the pumpkin leaked so much juice during baking, but I think that's probably a bonus since the resulting puree should be less soupy. The pumpkin flesh was sliced much thinner than last time and it helped move the blending part of this endeavor along. I do think that a stick blender would be marvelous for this - I'd dump the pumpkin into a big bowl and go to town.

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