…and with the start of fall, i’ve decided to go for the gusto.  regardless of mother nature neglecting the change in season (71/partly cloudy & humid), i will sweat over a pot of steaming fruit flesh because, darn-it, it’s fall. 

pumpkin: roasted, drained, heated, pureed, and cooked down to it’s richest, most glorious form. the beautiful thing about jarred fruit butters is the preservation; in the back of my cupboard, during the hot pit of summer, that small can i’ve so conveniently forgotten about is filled with a spread that saying, “something much, much better is coming.”

(always save your seeds for roasting!)

1 medium sugar pumpkin, cut in half and seeded (usually in the squash section at your grocery store!)

3-4 cups of apple juice (maybe a little more, depending on how much pumpkin you have)

2 tsp. fresh grated ginger

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

2 tsp. cinnamon (i used 3 or 4 because that’s how i like it)

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 c. white sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

preheat oven to 325 degrees. cover each pumpkin half with foil and roast on a baking sheet, face-up, for 1 hour until soft. remove foil and let cool. once they’re able to handle, scape flesh out with spoon and transfer into a large pot. 

cover pumpkin flesh with apple juice, just enough to almost cover it.  Add a lid and bring to a boil. let simmer for 30 minutes. once the pumpkin starts to break down, take the pot off the heat. 

NOW THE FUN PART: pureeing. you can use an immersion blender (like i did) or anything that, well, purees (blender, food processor, etc.). once the butter is smooth as silk, add all your spices and sugar then transfer back into the pot. continue to cook the mixture down until it’s as thick as it can get (most likely another 45-60 minutes), and stirring every couple minutes. transfer to a container to cool, or preserve it by jarring. 

secrets to the best butter: step one, cook it for longer than you think you’ll need to! as long as you’re not scorching it, cook the butter down for as long as you can. the thicker, the better. also: taste, taste, taste. i ended up adding more sugar than the original recipe because i’m american and we can never have enough white sugar in our diet. IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, there are a lot of reasons why this is a recipe everyone should have in their cache, and i can’t  be happier about now having it in mine.