Pumpkin lovers, prepare yourselves. Raw pumpkin is mostly water – up to 90%! – so it really doesn't have much flavor. In fact, the flavor we usually think of as “pumpkin” actually is pumpkin pie spicea mixture of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. You might think you can overcome the lack of flavor by adding more pumpkin puree to your recipe, but you'd be wrong: By the time you've added enough puree to taste, your baked good would have a soggy texture. because of all that moisture.
Recently, our Test Kitchen was determined to figure out how to add pumpkin puree without adding too much water. Test Kitchen Manager Sarah Jampel started by thinking about all the ways bakers try to concentrate the flavor of pumpkins. Some people try to drain the water by draining it overnight, while others try to remove the 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 went back to basics that the fastest way to get rid of water is to force it to evaporate through heat. Inside her Apple Butter Apple Galetteshe turned applesauce into a thick, flavorful applesauce by cooking it on the stove. So our Test Kitchen wondered, could the same technique be applied to pumpkin puree, allowing a relatively large amount to be packed into baked goods without adversely affecting their texture?
How does it work?
The process is simple. By slowly cooking the pumpkin puree on the stove (10 to 15 minutes, depending on the recipe), the water is forced to evaporate, resulting in a mixture that is thicker and more concentrated. The amount of cooking water is drastic – Sarah says the mash can be cut in half (both in weight and volume).
And without all that water in the way, the natural sugar in the pumpkin has a chance to caramelize and brown, resulting in a more complex flavor.
Jen Bakos
For more taste, you can add spices (like the famous pumpkin pie spice!) to the puree during the cooking step. Heating the spices “blooms” them, releasing their aromatic and aromatic oils.
Try cooking your own pumpkin in these recipes
Chewy Pumpkin Cookies: Most pumpkin cookies are cakey, with a texture almost like muffin tops, due in part to the excess moisture in the pumpkin puree. Before developing a new pumpkin cookie recipe, Sarah tested a handful of the most popular recipes online and found that even if they were chewy, they didn't taste much like pumpkin because of the small amount of puree in them. dough.
Food photography and styling by Liz Neily
So Sarah reduced the mash on the stove to make pumpkin cookies that were dense, chewy, gooey, and full of pumpkin flavor. In this recipe for Chewy Pumpkin Cookies, the moisture is cooked from both the pumpkin puree and the butter used in the recipe; Pumpkin pie spice is also incorporated into the batter, bringing an even more warm and cozy flavor.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
The Biggest Pumpkin Chocolate Loaf: Pumpkin bread is another baked good that usually lacks the flavor of pumpkin. Most recipes call for less than 1 cup of puree to avoid a mushy texture, but since that's less than a full can of store-bought puree, you're left with an inconvenient amount of leftover puree—and your bread it has only a faint pumpkin flavor. Sarah wanted to use a whole can of pumpkin to avoid leftovers while still making sure the bread really tasted like pumpkin, so she turned to the reduced pumpkin technique once again.
During the cooking process, the water evaporates, the sugar in the squash begins to caramelize, and the spices bloom. The end product has a nice soft crumb as well as bold pumpkin flavor.
Use reduced pumpkin in any recipe
When I asked Sarah if you could use this reduced puree technique in any squash recipe, she said, “I wouldn't do it in any recipe without making other changes. You are losing so much moisture; you have to add it back if you want a similar texture in your baked goods.”
Liz Neily
If you want to experiment, you can try reducing the pumpkin and adding moisture back into your recipe in the form of milk, water, or another flavored liquid like juice or drink, but be aware that your results will likely vary. Sarah recommends sticking to recipes that have been developed to use this technique if you want to be sure to end up with the maximum pumpkin flavor and texture.
Looking for more ways to boost flavors in your baked goods? Watch our video for Ultimate Brown Butter Rice Krispies Treatswhich uses some tricks like browning the butter and frying it powdered milk for layers of taste.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne.
