Recipe: Homemade Pumpkin Butter

Editor's Note: The Manhattan Beach Farmers Market, 13th Street and Morningside Drive, is held every Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (after Labor Day); from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (after Memorial Day).

The Bounty: Pumpkin

Hello, October! It’s pumpkin season.

I can’t think of another produce item that dominates a whole month the way pumpkin does. A symbol of harvest and Halloween, nothing says fall like the pumpkin. The amazing thing is that while we all buy a big, orange pumpkin or two this time of year, hardly any of us eat the things. Canned pumpkin has become the standard, and most of the pumpkins we see in pumpkin patches and supermarket parking lots are carving pumpkins—perfectly edible but not quite as tasty as the small, round, sweet and fleshy sugar pumpkin (a.k.a. pie pumpkin).

Canned pumpkin is just fine for sugar-loaded pies, but for more delicate dishes like stewed pumpkin or pumpkin butter, fresh pumpkin is really the ticket for allowing that refined squash flavor to shine. 

Recipes for homemade pumpkin butter vary significantly in number of ingredients, difficulty and time commitment. Many recipes call for an extremely long cooking time and a ton of spices, ciders, sugars and so forth. While I’m sure they produce some perfectly delicious pumpkin butter, I like to keep it simple.

With that in mind, if it’s not possible for you to make your own pumpkin puree, you can use the canned stuff; just make sure it is plain pureed pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling. Trust me, though—it’s way better and way more fun to make it with the real stuff. Plus, that way you get the seeds too. Yum! 

The Banquet: Homemade Pumpkin Butter

Makes about 6 pints of pumpkin butter

3 ½ cups sugar pumpkin puree* or 1 (29 ounce) can

2 tsp vanilla extract

¾ cup packed brown sugar

2 cinnamon sticks

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (more or less to taste)

½ teaspoon allspice 

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and, stirring continually, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, uncovered, until thickened, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Remove cinnamon sticks and pour into jars. Enjoy on toast, scones, peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate squares…pretty much anything!

* To make pumpkin puree, slice your pumpkin in half with a large serrated knife and carefully scoop out the seeds and stringy inside flesh. Slice in quarters and roast on a baking sheet in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until soft. You can also steam or microwave for about 15 minutes, if that’s easier for you. When it’s done, the skin will peel right off. Slice the flesh into chunks and add to the food processor or blender a few chunks at a time, pureeing until smooth. Yield is usually around two or three cups of puree per 6-inch diameter pie pumpkin (sugar pumpkin), so two small pumpkins or one larger pumpkin should do the trick.