Pumpkin Butter in the House!

For the last few years we have made apple butter in the fall... and this year I decided to add pumpkin butter to our repertoire!  Um, YUM?  I am so glad I decided to try it... super easy, quick, and GOOD!  My Dad loves everything pumpkin and I am so going to figure out a way to get some to him, he is going to freak over it!

I devised my own recipe after reading over many different versions on the internet.  Most of them had too much sugar for my liking and were made with cans of pumpkin puree and on the stove.  I wanted to start with whole pumpkins, and make it in my BFF, the crockpot.  You ready?

 
Pumpkin Butter ala Laura

(yields 3.5 pints)

9 - 10 pounds whole pie pumpkins

     (this was about 5 small pie pumpkins & makes approx. 7 cups puree)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 cup apple cider

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp ground ginger

2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

After washing, splitting my pumpkins in half, and piercing holes in them, I baked them face down in a rimmed cookie sheet at 425 for about 45 minutes or until they were super soft.  Then I set them aside to cool.  Once cool I scooped out the seeds, peeled off the skin and placed the "meat" in the crock pot.  Finally I used my fav kitchen tool, a stick blender, to puree it up.

Then I added the rest of the ingredients to the crock pot and set it on low... I thought I would be cooking it for around 8 hours, but after 3.5 hours it was done!  So fast, and the kitchen smelled scarily good,  every time I go in there I get hungry again! 

I was going to can it, but read this site and decided that until I did more research that we would just freeze what won't get eaten in the next week or two.  Better to be safe than sorry, right?

(And a HUGE thankyou to Cathy, who read my mind yesterday and baked fresh cranberry scones (sans glaze) that made the perfect compliment to the buttah!)