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Pumpkin & Winter Squash

How to Make Pumpkin Purée

During the fall, pumpkin purée is one of our favourite ingredients to use in the kitchen. It's versatile and can be used in many savoury and sweet recipes. Use pumpkin purée to make pumpkin pancakes, muffins, fritters or loaf breads.

The purée is also ideal for adding to the cookie batter, like in our soft pumpkin cookies or pumpkin and orange cookies.

Add it to the pies fillings to enrich the flavour. You can even make chocolate truffles with this healthy ingredient. 

When roasted, sugar pumpkins develop even more sweetness as the starches caramelize and turn to sugar.

Which pumpkin to use for the purée

For the pumpkin purée use any kind of pumpkin - sugar pumpkin, hokkaido pumpkin, kabocha squash or even butternut squash. The pumpkin mash can be prepared in several ways but this time we choose roasting the pumpkin which brings out an amazingly sweet caramel flavour.

Choose a small pumpkin

Choose a small pumpkin, not more than 1-1.5kg. From 1kg of pumpkin you get approximately 250-300g of purée. For this recipe you will only need 120g of pumpkin purée so you can use the rest for other recipes or freeze for the later use.

Each pumpkin has its own taste. We love hokkaido pumpkins, which are one of the easiest pumpkins to prepare. These pumpkins are round, small with bright orange colour inside and out. They flavour is amazingly delicious, like chestnut.

Storing pumpkin mash

Pumpkin purée can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

For freezing, place the purée in the plastic freezer bag and keep for anytime you need it. Thaw frozen purée overnight in the refrigerator before using.

This way, you can prepare at any time delicious cookies, muffins, pies, pancakes, crêpes, croquettes, filo pastry rolls and much more.

Steps for making the pumpkin purée

1. Just rinse the PUMPKIN, then cut it in half (using a sharp knife) and scoop out the seeds (using a metal spoon).
   
   
2. Place the pumpkin halves on the baking sheet (lined with baking paper) cut-side down. Pierce skin a few times with a fork to let steam escape.
   
   
3. Bake in the preheated oven to 180°C/356°F. Baking time varies depending on the size of pumpkin, from 30 to 60 minutes. The pumpkin is ready once you can easily pierce the outer skin with a fork and the flash is soft. Flip the pumpkin on the other side for the last 5 minutes, so the steam goes out.
   
   
4. Cool until you can handle, then scoop out the flesh using a spoon and mash it. Roasted pumpkin is so soft that you can mash it using just a fork or a potato masher but you can also use stick blender or food processor to get a smooth creamy purée.