If you have been watching my blog (yeah, it doesn't do tricks... it doesn't even get updated often), then you will know that I have a special love for pumpkins and a scientific curiosity about them. There are hundreds of varieties of pumpkin and I have been trying different ones over the years. My first experiment was never completed as I had a baby that fall. But I have done the full experiment 3 times: in 2014, in 2018, and this fall. Look through my archives for the first two installments. Below is number 3.
This year I tried four types of pumpkins. Above you will see the Jarrahdale (in the blue family) and the Porcelain Doll. Both were purchased at Callie's Acre in Gilmer, TX. I also used two White Pie pumpkins and a Marina di Chioggia (in the warty family).
The steps I take are: select pumpkins of varying types/families, bake them, puree them, roast the seeds, and cook with them. I start by cooking my favorite muffin recipe but throughout the year I also make pies, soups, and other baked items with them. I find that most people use pumpkins for baked goods most often, so I only talk about the muffins in the post.
Here we go:
Marin di Chioggia
I have only ever baked with one warty pumpkin before now and you can look up my past posts to find it. The Chioggia is flat (as opposed to round), dark green, and has nobs all over it.
This year, I decided to bake the pumpkins whole instead of gutting and cutting them before baking. I know that if this were a true science experiment, changing the method of baking would disqualify the results. But as a lay person, I am not bothered. Baking the entire pumpkin before gutting made the work easier. You can see how large the Chioggia we chose was- that is an 18 x 26 in baking tray.
Here are the guts. The seeds were extra large and very white. The Chioggia had a rather earthy smell while baking. It was not a pleasant, "I want to eat that smell." When I cut it open, the meat also smelled a bit earthy and was a deep orange. The skin of the pumpkin turned almost black while baking.
The meat made a very thick puree and was not watery at all. I pureed the pumpkin while it was still very warm, but did not measure and bag it until it had fully cooled. By that time, the puree had almost hardened and scooped up in chunks. My husband said it reminded him of some of the grosser baby poo we had to deal with a few years ago. The muffin batter was also very thick, but it was a nice consistency for batter- not runny, easy to scoop, a little sticky, and it had a rich pumpkin flavor.
I did not get pictures of the muffins and we donated most of them to the fraternity of which my husband is the sponsor. College boys need muffins a lot more than I do! The Chioggia muffins actually came out a little dark from over baking, but even with that we liked them quite a bit.
We baked the seeds, as well. They turned out very tasty. Unlike the muffins, we could have baked them a little longer; but they were popping like popcorn, so I took them out.
White Pie
We bought the White Pie and Chioggia at Ellis Pottery in Longview. That is where I got all the pumpkins in 2014 and I was hoping for another Cheese pumpkin, as that was my favorite. They seemed to be out (although, when I looked at pictures taken by a friend later on, there was ONE in the pumpkin patch where the children were playing). I settled for the Chioggia and the White Pie. I almost bought a Turban pumpkin, as well, but I wanted an even number of types and couldn't find a fourth I wanted. Thus the second trip to Callie's Acre later on.
The White Pie pumpkin is a lot larger than the orange Pie pumpkins you find in the store. It was smaller than any other pumpkin I have tried, though, so I got two. Even after baking, the guts were much harder to remove than the Chioggia. The inside is almost as white as the outside and had a sweet smell and flavor. It was very mild, rather watery, and made a thin puree. The skin peeled away very easily and was thin as paper.
The seeds were much smaller, but also rather pale. The puree made a much thinner batter and the muffins had a very mild flavor. If you like the spicy part of Pumpkin Spice but not the pumpkin part, then this is the pumpkin for you. The muffins came out sweeter tasting even though they had the same amount of sugar as the rest. I found it to be meh. And now I have about 12 cups of puree to use somehow.
The Porcelain Doll
If you look at the cover photo, you'll notice the change in color after baking. The Porcelain Doll has a rather pink color before baking but turns very orange. There is a semi-sweet smell while cooking that is quite pleasant.
You can see that there are quite a lot of seeds. The seeds are small and dark. The center removed nicely but there were a few spots of white in the meat near the center that I also had to remove. They were hard and would not have pureed very well.
Tiny seeds. They were alright roasted, kind of crunchy. The meat of this pumpkin was very dark in color. The skin was extra thick and difficult to cut before baking. I'm glad I didn't try to cut up the entire pumpkin and baked it whole instead. But I still had to cut venting holes for the steam and that was a difficult job.
The Porcelain Doll made a very thick puree with almost no water. My submergible blender had a harder time with this one than any of the others. I probably could have baked this pumpkin a bit longer than I did to make it easier to puree, but I was baking it on the same tray as the Jarrahdale, so I took them out at the same time.
This puree made very good muffins! Both my daughters declared them the favorites of the four this year. My husband liked the muffins of the Chioggia best, although he wasn't a fan of helping with the puree. I liked the Jarrahdale muffins best, I think.
Jarrahdale
I feel like I have worked with this one before, but as I look back I see that it was the Speckled Hound. These are very different. The Jarrahdale is more round and is lighter before baking. I loved how it turned darker and had waves of brown on it! It looked like one of those porcelain pumpkins you can buy at Hobby Lobby.
You can see the pool of water on top of the pumpkin. It did sweat a little, but the puree was not super runny like the White Pie.
Cut open you can see that there seems to be a lot of guts, but there is quite a bit of meat on there. Considering it was the second smallest pumpkin we purchased, we still got over 8 cups of puree out of it. The meat smelled earthy but in a pleasant way, not the same as the Chioggia.
The seeds were also tiny and dark, but with less of a dark line around the outside. They were fine and easy to remove. I collected most of them.
Even though you could see the pool of water on top of the baked pumpkin, you don't see any in the bowl. The meat scraped away fine from the skin and made a great puree.
The batter I made from this puree tasted the best! It was just the right pumpkin to sweetness. You can see it is a dark puree and it came out nice and smooth. This also made my favorite of this year's pumpkin choices. In future, I'll pull out the "winners" from each year and pit them against each other, but I still have several types to try before we get to the final round.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog. Even if no one reads it, I like to have a record of my pumpkin adventures. I'd blog more often if we had good internet speeds at our house. As it was, I had to go to the University for which my husband works in order to upload the pics. In future, perhaps I'll be able to update more often. If so, I may begin an apple experiment! As a Michigan girl, apples are passion. We don't get many varieties in the stores down here in Texas. I try to get to MI each fall to pick at our favorite orchard and I make apple sauce, apple butter, apple pie, and apple bread with them. It's an idea for later. In the meantime, happy pumpkin month!
