Things bakers know: The simple trick for better pumpkin bakes (2024)
Pumpkin lovers, brace yourselves. Raw pumpkin is mostly water — up to 90%! — so it really doesn’t have much flavor. In fact, the flavor that we usually think of as “pumpkin” is actually pumpkin pie spice, a blend of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. You might think you could overcome the lack of flavor by adding more pumpkin purée to your recipe, but you’d be mistaken: By the time you’ve added enough purée to taste it, your baked good would have a soggy texture on account of all that moisture.
Recently, our Test Kitchen was determined to figure out how to add pumpkin purée without introducing too much water. Test Kitchen Manager Sarah Jampel started by thinking about all the ways bakers try to concentrate pumpkin’s flavor. Some people try to drain off the water by straining it overnight, while others try to remove moisture by patting it with paper towels. But Sarah wanted to do something more impactful (and efficient).
Photography by Rick Holbrook; Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne
Sarah returned to the basic principle that the fastest way to get rid of water is to force it to evaporate via heat.In herApple Butter Apple Galette, she turned applesauce into a thick, flavorful apple butter by cooking it on the stovetop.So, our Test Kitchen wondered, could the same technique be applied to pumpkin purée, allowing a relatively large amount to be crammed into baked goods without adversely affecting their texture?
How it works
The process is simple. By slowly cooking pumpkin purée on the stovetop (10 to 15 minutes, depending on the recipe), the water is forced to evaporate off, resulting in an ingredient that's thicker and more concentrated.The amount of water that gets cooked off is drastic — Sarah says the purée can be reduced by half (both in weight and volume).
And without all that water in the way, the natural sugar in the pumpkin has the opportunity to caramelize and brown, resulting in a more complex flavor.
For even more flavor, you can add spices (like the celebrated pumpkin pie spice!) to the purée during the cooking step. Heating spices “blooms” them, releasing their flavorful, fragrant oils.
Try cooking down your pumpkin in these recipes
Fudgy-Chewy Pumpkin Cookies: Most pumpkin cookies are cakey, with a texture almost like muffin tops, in part due to the excess moisture in pumpkin purée. Before developing a new recipe for pumpkin cookies, Sarah tested a handful of the most popular recipes on the internet and found that even if they were chewy, they didn’t taste very much like pumpkin because of how little purée was in the dough.
Photography and food styling by Liz Neily
So Sarah reduced the purée on the stove to make pumpkin cookies that were dense, chewy, fudgy, and had big pumpkin flavor. In this recipe for Fudgy-Chewy Pumpkin Cookies, the moisture is cooked off of both the pumpkin purée and the butter used in the recipe; pumpkin pie spice is also incorporated into the dough, bringing even more warm, cozy flavor.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
The Most Pumpkin Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread: Pumpkin bread is another baked good that commonly lacks pumpkin flavor. Most recipes call for less than 1 cup of purée to avoid a gummy texture, but since that’s less than a full can of storebought purée, you’re left with an inconvenient amount of leftover purée — and your bread only has faint pumpkin flavor. Sarah wanted to use an entire can of pumpkin to avoid leftovers while also ensuring the bread actually tasted pumpkiny, so she turned to the reduced pumpkin technique once again.
During the cooking process, the water evaporates, the sugar in the pumpkin starts to caramelize, and the spices bloom. The final product has a beautifully tender crumb, as well as bold pumpkin flavor.
Using reduced pumpkin in any recipe
When I asked Sarah if you could use this reduced purée technique in any pumpkin recipe, she said, “I wouldn’t do it in any recipe without making other changes. You’re losing so much moisture; you need to add it back in if you want a similar texture in your baked goods.”
Liz Neily
If you’d like to experiment, you can try reducing pumpkin and adding moisture back into your recipe in the form of milk, water, or another flavorful liquid like juice or liquor, but be aware that your results will likely vary. Sarah recommends sticking to recipes that were developed to use this technique if you want to be sure you end up with the maximum pumpkin flavor and the best texture.
Looking for more ways to amplify the flavors in your baked goods? Check out our video for Ultimate Brown Butter Rice Krispies Treats, which uses a few tricks like browning the butter and toasting the milk powder for layers of flavor.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.
Pumpkin loves spice. But if your canned pumpkin is pre-mixed with spices, they won't do much to combat the meh flavor. You can use store-bough pumpkin pie spice mix, but these pre-mixed spices can lose thier luster if they've been sitting on a shelf for months.
Luckily, we also make two of the best substitutes for pumpkin as well! Organic Butternut Squash Puree and Sweet Potato puree! You can sub these in a 1-to-1 ratio with no issue in just about any recipe.
Pumpkin spice (a.k.a. pumpkin pie spice) is an aromatic blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Sometimes allspice is included. You can buy the spice blend at the store or use ingredients you already have on hand to make DIY pumpkin spice.
For cooking, you'll want to use sugar pumpkins (also called pie or sweet pumpkins), which are small and round. Long Island Cheese pumpkins, which are more oblong and can look like a wheel of cheese, are also good to eat. Field pumpkin types are larger, have watery, stringy flesh, and are best for decorating.
For even more flavor, you can add spices (like the celebrated pumpkin pie spice!) to the purée during the cooking step. Heating spices “blooms” them, releasing their flavorful, fragrant oils.
The pie is generally flavored with pumpkin pie spice, a blend that includes cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves or allspice. The pie is usually prepared with canned pumpkin, but fresh-cooked pumpkin can be used.
Canned pumpkin (labeled as "100% pure pumpkin") is a purée of pumpkin that is sometimes mixed with other kinds of winter squash. It is unsweetened and does not contain any added spices. Canned pumpkin and pumpkin puree are the same thing, and you'll often see the terms used interchangeably in recipes and cookbooks.
The claim is that these pumpkins have been grown specifically for pumpkin puree in cooking and baking, so the result is a sweeter and creamier product. Interesting. Of course, anything that's been canned will likely taste different than the fresh product.
They are genetically different, so they grow to a smaller size. The interior or flesh is a darker orange. Pie pumpkins, also called sugar pumpkins, usually weigh 1 to 6 pounds. Their flesh is denser and sweeter that the bigger ones, which are called carving or jack-o'-lantern pumpkins.
Pumpkin is notorious for pairing well with warm winter spices – as found in a variety of Moroccan-inspired cuisines. Try incorporating cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cumin and chilli with your pumpkin dishes for flavour-packed feasts.
The major and common ingredient in pumpkin spice lattes include: cinnamic aldehydes for cinnamon, eugenol for clove or allspice, terpenes such as sabinene for nutmeg, and zingiberene for ginger. They may also contain vanillin and cyclotene for the burnt butter or maple notes to round off the flavor.
If picked too early your pumpkin will be bland, having never developed its natural sweetness. If you wait too long, frost could shorten its shelf life. When the perfect moment arrives, you'll see one or more of these signs: Dry leaves.
Also known as Sugar Pie pumpkins, these thin-skinned squash are smaller (4-8 lbs.) and have a sweet, dense flesh with a fine-grained, smooth texture. The cooked flesh is a bit drier, which makes a great pie filling.
Is Pumpkin Puree the Same as Pure Pumpkin? Yes, canned pumpkin can be labeled as 100% pure pumpkin or just as pumpkin puree. They are the same product. Both canned pumpkin puree and pie filling are useful, shelf-stable ingredients that can help speed up your kitchen prep time.
I like to roast wedges of pumpkin which helps to reduce the moisture content, making it taste richer and sweeter. You can flavour the pumpkin at this point by rubbing it with a spice of choice. Place a couple of halved onions to cook with the pumpkin to either use in the soup or as a garnish.
Always water plants well before and after planting. Pinch out the main stems once growth starts; this will encourage more lateral stems and give you a heavier crop of fruit. To encourage large pumpkins, allow only two to three to develop on each plant. Water plants thoroughly before planting and allow to drain.
Mix a little into softened butter along with a bit of brown sugar and some warm spices (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon).Spread on warm biscuits, or, whatever, just lick it off a spoon.
There are a variety of craft items you can use for decorating pumpkins. They include but are not limited to: painting, decoupage, hot glue, pom poms, stickers, vinyl, gems, feathers, and more. AND there are a few carving ideas in here, but they are fake pumpkins, so the experience is very different.
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