 | | | Pumpkin butter Photo Susie Iventosch | | | | | | Fall is in the air and that means it's time for pumpkin recipes! So how about some pumpkin butter? It's really just like apple butter, only made with pumpkin purée, brown sugar, pure maple syrup, spices, vanilla and a little splash of apple juice. It's tasty with peanut butter or all by itself on toast in the morning, and you can mix it into scone dough for autumn breakfast treats. If you happen to have any pie dough leftover, roll it out, spread the pumpkin butter over the entire circle of dough, roll it up like a jelly roll, slice it and bake it for some delicious pumpkin pie dough roll ups. I usually we do that with butter, cinnamon and sugar, but this is a fun fall option for sure. Don't forget to sprinkle the tops of the pie dough roll ups with a little cinnamon sugar before you bake them!
If you're ambitious, you can cook your own pumpkin purée, but I take the easy route and make this with canned pumpkin. There are several brands of canned pumpkin on the market and I've used Trader Joe's and Farmer's Market for this recipe. I slightly preferred the flavor of Trader Joe's, and have yet to try Libby's or homemade, but I think any of them would work just fine.
Pumpkin butter
(Yields 1 1/2 cups of Pumpkin Butter)
INGREDIENTS
1 15-oz. can pumpkin purée
(I like to use Trader Joe's pumpkin
purée for this recipe)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. pure maple syrup
1/3 cup apple juice
DIRECTIONS
Stir all ingredients together in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring often. Once it reaches a boil, immediately reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened to the consistency of apple butter, about 30-40 minutes. Stir occasionally during the cooking process. Remove from heat and cool. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA