Baking Baking Pumpkin

Cooled baking pumpkin drizzled with Bluebird Gardens honey, so delicious! (Charlotte Ekker Wiggins photo)

Baking Baking Pumpkin

Maybe it was the overnight turn in temperatures but today was the day to bake my little cute baking pumpkin.

It’s been sitting on my den coffee table, my idea of easy fall decorating. About the size of a small basketball, baking pumpkins are different than the larger Jack O’Lantern pumpkins also popular for fall decorating. The baking pumpkin flesh is more dense and easier to use in cooking.

Interestingly enough, baking pumpkins are available in October but try to find one around Thanksgiving and you will be out of luck!

A baking pumpkin has sat on my den coffee table for a couple of weeks. Fall decorating. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

To bake this, or other pumpkins, wash the outside with water. Remove the top notch. Cut down the center.

I remove the seeds and give them to my outside residents but you can also roast them for a snack.

I also don’t sweat the fibers that hold in the seeds, they will bake quite nicely.

My baking pumpkin cut open so I can remove the seeds. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Fill each of the baking pumpkin halves with water and place on a cookie sheet.

Warm over to 350F. Place the pumpkin halves in the oven and bake 45 minutes or until you can press a fork into the sides.

One of the baking pumpkin halves cooked and ready to slice. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Once cool, peel and cut off the outside, some will easy peel now that it is cooked. Cut up into small chunks.

Now here is my favorite part, drizzle with local honey. According to historians, this is closer to how the European settlers first consumed pumpkins with Native Americans on those first Thanksgivings.

You can bake a Jack O’Lantern pumpkin and any of the other pumpkins the same way. Once cool, remove the center pulp; blend. Use the blended pumpkin in your recipe instead of canned pumpkin. And yes, they are quite different. Once you try a real pumpkin you may not go back to the canned variety, which is really a blend of pumpkins and squash.

I have about 8 half cup servings of baked pumpkin out of this one, and I enjoyed two of them. The rest are in the freezer for later use. I can also make pumpkin custard with this fresh pumpkin, more flavorful than the canned pumpkin. Canned pumpkin is a mix of squash and pumpkin,

Charlotte