I meant to do this post last November, but as I hadn't done any posts in a couple years, I decided to bring everyone up to speed first. This is the fourth installment of my pumpkin experiment.
If you haven't followed my previous posts, you won't know what this is. Here's a sum-up. Every other year or so, I purchase several different breeds of pumpkin, bake them, puree them, and make muffins from them. Then I feed them to my friends and have them vote. I take copious notes along the way so that there is record of how the pumpkin smells, looks, tastes, and other details. I plan to keep on doing this until I can't find any more kinds of pumpkin to try. Then I'll do a semi-final and final round (or more, if we have more than 8 contenders) to find the best pumpkin for baking.
I wanted to record some other things, like judging on the best pumpkin for soups or the best pumpkin for pies, but I haven't done that. I may add those to the final round.
This year, I chose the pumpkins pictured above. They are: The Turk's Turban (the orange and green one that looks, well, like a turban), The Crystal Star (round white one in the middle), The Flat White Boer, and the Cushaw (technically not a pumpkin, see below).
The Turk's Turban
I've anted to work with this pumpkin for awhile, but hadn't gotten around to it. This year, it was on my short list, so when I went to Ellis Pottery to get one, I was saw to find they had only one left! It was a little later in the season than usual- the first week of November- but, still! So, I'm not sure it this one was the best version of the Turk's Turban out there.
I roasted it whole. When I did open it up, I found that it had almost no seeds and very little pulp.
The top of the turban also fell in a bit.
The meat was not very watery. This pumpkin yielded only 4 cups of puree, but it was rather small. Normally, I take notes on the skin texture, how easy it is to peel, and how it smells. But it appears I dropped the ball that day because I'm missing all that info on my notes.
I did, however, take a picture after I gutted it. It appears that the flesh does not come away from the skin easily.
Some more water came out when I pureed it- but it still wasn't runny like some pumpkins.
Crystal Star
This is a pretty popular pumpkin for decorating the front steps. It is very round, very white, and not too large or heavy.
Even after baking, the seeds were very white. There wasn't a lot of flesh and this pumpkin yielded 6 cups of puree. It has a mild smell and the puree was a bit extra watery. I had to scoop the flesh from the skin, which had turned leathery in the oven.
This was after I syphoned off some water.
Flat White Boer
This pumpkin is another fun one for decorating, as it stacks. This pumpkin breed originated in South Africa. This pumpkin was HUGE- as you can see by the larger tray on which I baked it.
There was a ton of meat on this (yes, I use flesh and meat interchangeably), it filled 4 huge bowls! The water was dripping from the pumpkin before I even scooped out the flesh. The seeds were large. Tasting the meat, it tested the most "pumpkin-like." The skin peeled off nicely and the center pulp removed very easily. It also pureed easily because of the extra water.
And last, but not least...
The Cushaw
The Cushaw isn't actually a pumpkin. It is more closely related to the Butternut and Acorn Squash. In Tennessee, it is called the sweet potato squash. This species of squash is one of the oldest cultivated crops in the world! They have found evidence of it as far back as 7000 BC in mesoamerica. It is also rarely found outside the Americas even though many other squash breeds have been cultivated all over the world.
One of the best things about the Cushaw is that it is hard to kill. This is why is has lasted as long as it has as a cultivated food source. It is resistant to the squash-stem borer or vine borer, a common pest that kills almost all other kinds of squash. The Cushaw grows great in humid climates, does not need a lot of irrigation, and is very heat tolerant.
Like a butternut squash, the neck is mostly meat! The seeds were large and there wasn't too much pulp. The flesh was stringy, almost like spaghetti squash, yet it pureed up just fine. The flesh was pale white but turned yellowish when pureed. The puree also smelled a bit like matcha as it cooled- very grassy.
Now for the judging!! I used my crochet group this year as the guinea pigs. I've used Alpha Omega (the fraternity my husband sponsors) and Legacy Academy students (the University-Model school my children attended) as tasters.
I made my favorite pumpkin muffins and was as careful as possible to do everything the same for each one. Disclaimer: The Crystal Star (#3) was a little different. I forgot to melt the cream cheese and butter before creaming them with the sugar, and these were the only muffins made in the large pan instead of the smaller one.
Number one was Turk's Turban. Two was the Boer. Three was Crystal Star. And four was the Cushaw.
As you can see, almost everyone preferred the Cushaw! I did note that the Boer made the fluffiest batter. The Turban was the most dense and the Cushaw the lightest after baking. The Cushaw won in every category except "spicy." That was the Crystal Star. Usually, the milder the pumpkin taste, the spicier the muffin is because the spices come through better.
I had the ladies taste them blind and then told them all about what they had voted on. Every one of them was keen to try to grown Cushaw in their gardens, so I kept some seeds back before roasting all the seeds together.
Our fall was full of awesome fun! Check out the next post to see what else we did!
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