Food - Drink
How To Check If Your Homemade Pumpkin Puree Is The Right Consistency
By KATIE HORST
Homemade pumpkin puree is a far bigger commitment than using canned pumpkin filling, but you can take a few steps to ensure smooth, velvety results with a much better pumpkin flavor. Firstly, use Dickinson, Long Island Cheese or sugar pumpkins, which are sweeter, denser, and far more edible than watery and stringy jack-o-lantern pumpkins.
Once you have your pumpkin, clean it and scoop out the seeds before roasting it flesh side-down at 350 degrees F until it is easily pierced with a fork. After scooping the flesh from the skin or peeling the skin off, chopping the pumpkin into chunks, and blending until smooth or mashing it by hand, you can check if your puree is the right texture.
Some thick pumpkin purees need water added to become super-smooth, while thinner purees can be strained to thicken them. To test the consistency of your paste, Cook’s Illustrated suggests packing it into a drinking glass and then un-molding it onto a plate — if the small mountain of puree slumps a bit at the bottom, you’re golden.