Demystifying the pumpkin
Understanding pumpkin's popularity in (US) baking, and three recipes using a single pumpkin.
Like a Swiss Army Knife or a bottle of Windex, it could be said that a pumpkin is the ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ of the fresh produce world. Looking to add some sweet colour to your Sunday roast? Pumpkin has you covered. Fancy getting creative and sculpting a Jack-o-Lantern for Halloween? There’s a pumpkin for that! Maybe you fancy baking something spiced and delicious? You guessed it, there’s a pumpkin for that too.
Though as surprising as it may be to some, baking with pumpkin is by no means universal. While it most definitely got a run in soups and was a regular in a medley of roast veggies during my Aussie childhood, rarely, if ever, was pumpkin used in a sweet bake or dessert.
My Australian sensibilities are befuddled by the thought of a pumpkin-spiced latte or a can of pumpkin puree. But to many people in North America, it’s as common as a pavlova is in Australia. After all, the idea of pumpkin in a bake is deliciously logical. It’s sweet, full of flavour, and pairs so well with spices, making it perfect for cakes, custards, and purees. It feels somewhat remiss of us here in Australia to not be as smitten with pumpkin in our sweet bakes. Carrot is often heralded as a top-tier cake ingredient (at least in my house!), so why not pumpkin!?
I know for some, the thought of a vegetable in a sweet bake can be somewhat flummoxing. But here’s the thing – pumpkin isn’t a vegetable. It’s a fruit! I only recently learned this on the eve of my 41st birthday. You can imagine my shock at not having realised this sooner. Of course it’s a fruit. It has seeds inside!
And so I started wondering, why is pumpkin such a cultural and baking phenomenon in the North but not here in the South? Shelley Mitchell has written a fascinating article over on The Conversation that delves into why this iconic fruit is so prolific in America. She writes that:
“…pumpkins originated in Central and South America, ending up in North America as Native Americans migrated north and carried the seeds with them. The oldest pumpkin seeds discovered were found in Mexico and date back about 9,000 years.”
Colonists have America’s Indigenous people to thank for introducing them to the sweet beauty of the pumpkin. They then swiftly started turning them into pies in hollowed-out pumpkins, as well as mixing pumpkin with apples, sugar, and spices. The first custard-style recipe appeared in 1796 in a book called American Cookery.
So that’s a brief history, but surely there’s more to the cultural hold pumpkins have in America? Indeed there is, as Jessica Stoller-Conrad over on NPR writes:
The rehab of pumpkin’s popularity began when 19th-century Americans began to move away from rural life and into the city, Ott says. “People became stressed about... moving into the office and off the farms, and [the pumpkin] starts to appear in poems and in paintings,” she says. “We’re celebrating the nostalgia for this old-fashioned, rural way of life, that no one ever really wanted to stay on, but everyone’s always been romantic about.”
Yearning for days past, pumpkins represent a simpler time. Add in the popularity of pumpkin spice, pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and Halloween’s hold on the month of October, the evidence is overwhelming. We should all be using pumpkin in our baking (and sculpting)!
One pumpkin, three recipes
And so today, to celebrate the humble pumpkin, I present you a triptych of pumpkin recipes, using one butternut pumpkin to make a:
Deliciously warming Spiced Roast Pumpkin Soup
Pepita (pumpkin seed) Praline
Spiced Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Icing.
But like any good story, there’s a twist. My cake doesn’t use pumpkin puree – whether from a can (which is relatively hard to find in Australia) or homemade. As I was researching and writing the cake recipe, I had a brainwave. Could I use my leftover spiced roasted pumpkin soup in the cake?! “Outrageous!” I thought initially.
But the more I thought about it, the more this seemingly absurd idea made sense. My soup includes pumpkin, coconut milk, and spices – all ingredients that are as at home in a cake as they are in a savoury dish. Throwing caution to the wind, I developed this recipe using leftover pumpkin soup. And let me tell you, it makes an outstanding cake. Moist, light, with hints of savoury peering out from behind the sweetness. As impossible as it sounds, this cake made with leftover soup from an entrée is absolutely delicious.
While I implore you to give the cake a try with the soup, you could sub it out for 400g of pumpkin puree.
Spiced Roast Pumpkin Soup
Ingredients
1-1.5kg butternut pumpkin
1 onion
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 can coconut milk
800ml water
Salt, pepper, and lemon juice to season
Sour cream and coriander leaves to serve
Method
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C. If you have a whole pumpkin, slice it in half from top to bottom and scoop out the seeds, saving them for another recipe (like my pepita praline). Dice the butternut pumpkin into large chunks – no need to peel it first – and place it into a large roasting tray. Peel the onion and slice it into six wedges. Add the onion to the roasting tray along with the spices, salt, and olive oil. Use a large spoon or your hands to mix everything together, ensuring the veggies are evenly covered in the spices and oil. Roast for around 50 minutes, giving the veggies a mix and flipping them a couple of times during roasting, until they are golden and cooked through.
While the veggies are roasting, pour the coconut milk into a large saucepan. Fill the can with water twice to measure out 800ml of water and pour it into the saucepan. Mix to combine and then bring to a gentle simmer. When the veggies have roasted, add them to the simmering liquid, making sure you scrape all the gnarly bits that may have caught on the roasting tray. Take the saucepan off the heat and use a stick blender to puree until smooth. Taste the soup and season with salt, pepper, and/or lemon juice to taste.
Ladle into bowls and serve with a dollop of sour cream and a few coriander leaves. Store any leftovers in the fridge for up to a week.
Spiced Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
Cake
400g Spiced Roast Pumpkin Soup from above (or 400g of pumpkin puree and a teaspoon each of ground ginger and cinnamon)
250ml canola oil (or any neutral-flavoured oil
4 eggs, room temperature
100g caster sugar
200g brown sugar
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Icing
125g cream cheese, room temperature
100g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
Method
Preheat your oven to 160 degrees C and grease and line the sides and base of a 23cm round cake tin.
In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin soup (or pumpkin puree), oil, eggs, and sugars until combined. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, bicarb soda, and baking powder (and spices if you’re using pumpkin puree instead of the soup). Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until fully combined.
Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 55-65 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out with only a few moist crumbs stuck to it. Leave to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes before transferring the cake to a wire rack to cool.
While the cake cools, make the icing by placing the cream cheese in a bowl and, with hand beaters, beat until smooth. Add the butter, icing sugar, and vanilla and beat until smooth. Once the cake is cool, generously lather it in the cream cheese icing, cut into wedges, sprinkle some pepita praline over each slice (if using, recipe below), and serve. Any leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days.
Pepita (Pumpkin Seed) Praline
Ingredients
Fresh pumpkin seeds reserved from a butternut pumpkin (I had 30g of seeds)
50g caster sugar
Sea salt flakes
Method
Preheat your oven to 150 degrees and line a small baking tray with baking paper. If you have just scooped out the seeds and flesh from a pumpkin, squeeze out all the seeds into a bowl and discard the pumpkin flesh. Spread the seeds out on the prepared baking tray and roast for 30-40 minutes, mixing and flipping the seeds 3-4 times during roasting, until dry and lightly golden.
To make the caramel, place the caster sugar in a small saucepan and place on a low/medium heat. Once the sugar starts to melt on the edges, gently stir to evenly melt and caramelise. The sugar will turn a light golden colour quickly, so watch carefully!
Working quickly once the sugar has caramelised, remove from the heat, add in the seeds, and mix to combine. Be warned – some of the seeds may pop when they hit the caramel!
Pour the caramel-covered seeds back onto the lined tray and evenly spread out. Sprinkle with some sea salt flakes and leave to cool. Once completely cool, either break into shards or pulse in a small food processor to create a rough crumb. However you break it up, this praline is perfect for snacking and garnishing slices of my Spiced Pumpkin Cake.
Stay sweet
Adam x