Hallowe'en!

Well, it was a year ago that I posted how to make pumpkin mush for use in future recipes (pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, cake, etc) that I intended to share but never did! I remembered of course, when I pulled out a bag of last year's pumpkin mush in order to make muffins for my daughter to bring to both her school and to her Girl Guides troop as a Hallowe'en treat. So here is the recipe:

Ingredients: 3 cups of flour (I use a mix of self-raising & coarse), 2 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsp cinnamon powder, 1 tsp clove powder, 4 eggs, 2 cups sugar (I use a mix of white & brown), 1 1/2 cups sunflower oil, 1 tsp vanilla, 450 grams pumpkin mush [just because that is how I measured the mush out last year, this year's bags weigh approx 440 grams - I don't think it will matter much, the original recipe is for 2 cups]

Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. In a large bowl mix flour, baking soda & powder, salt, cinnamon & clove. In another large bowl beat together eggs & sugar, then beat in oil & vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients from other bowl and gently fold in pumpkin mush. Let mix sit at least 5 minutes then spoon into muffin cups. (If not using paper muffin cups, make sure that muffin tin is thoroughly greased & floured. Bake approx 15 minutes. Yield at least 5 dozen. Decorate the muffins when cool; I frost with a simple glace frosting (icing sugar & water) with food colouring.

To get into the Hallowe'en spirit of course, pumpkins need to be carved into Jack-o-lanterns, and my husband has taken to the Irish tradition of carving a Willie-the-wisp out of turnip. This year he decided to skin the turnip completely, and the resulting skull looked a bit like alabaster.

I think it is a North American Hallowe'en tradition to bake the pumpkin seeds. It is a very simple and delicious snack! After cleaning the pumpkin in preparation for carving, be sure to wash the seeds.

Spread on a baking tray with a few knobs of butter and plenty of salt. Bake at 350 F/180 C for about 20 mins - check after 10 mins to shake tray and check if more butter is needed!

Mmmmmm, don't burn your mouth by immediately chowing down, but this snack is especially delicious when warm!

Hallowe'en!

As well as all the excitement of carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns every October,

it is the season for me to take out last year's pumpkin mush from the freezer and make a few batches of muffins. These get decorated as jack-o-lanterns too and get sent into school and/or Girl Guides with my daughter for her and her friends. If I have enough mush, I can make additional batches of muffins for sharing around elsewhere.

So after Hallowe'en night, the carved pumpkins get chopped and peeled and cut up into small cubes or rectangles.

A large orange (or several small ones or clementines) and a lemon are peeled and juiced. The juice and a tiny bit of water are added to the pot of pumpkin cubes (the pumpkin release a lot of water when cooking). The peel is cut into slivers

and added to the pot. Cook this gently on low-medium heat, stirring periodically, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan.

When all the pumpkin is cooked, it is soft enough to be mashed. Tilt the pot a bit to see how much liquid there is; if there is a lot of liquid, raise the heat to boil some of it off,

The pumpkin mush needs to be moist in order to give moisture and flavour to future pumpkin muffins. I will give the recipe for the muffins in another post, but if you can't wait, use pumpkin mush in the same recipes that you use for carrot cake or banana bread. Compare the picture below to the picture above to get an idea of how much liquid should not be left in the final mush.

I packed the mush into equal size freezer bags. In the past I have used weights of 350 g and 500 g, which also work fine in my recipes for muffins, and also in pumpkin pie (I'll give a recipe for that in a future post too). So it is a little bit random that these packs are 450 g but I figured it was a reasonable amount when I was packing and weighing. I put the 3 bags of mush into an additional freezer bag but will only use one bag at a time. One bag of mush will happily be used in a recipe that makes about 5 dozen small muffins or 2 pies.