This simple recipe uses little effort for maximum results. With just a handful of ingredients; including fresh rather than canned pumpkin there is no stovetop simmering required. This means you can pop the pumpkin in the oven, put your feet up, come back and in a few minutes have delicious pumpkin ackee butter to spread or stir into whatever you like!
How is pumpkin butter made?
Many pumpkin butters are made by simmering apple juice or honey with canned pumpkin and spices. I’ve bypassed all of that and opted for roasting fresh pumpkin. Then adding the ackees to create a thick and velvety pumpkin butter that is like none other with a distinctive nutty flavour. For spice I added Vietnamese cinnamon.
Why you shouldn’t sleep on Vietnamese Cinnamon
Now this cinnamon deserves a digression! Smelling Vietnamese cinnamon for the first for me was a heavenly experience! I’m not kidding 😍 the aroma is rich and heady, so beautiful it almost brought a tear to my eye.
I had first come across it on the King Arthur Flour webstore where they described it in the following manner: “tasting Vietnamese cinnamon next to supermarket cinnamon is like enjoying a cup of rich espresso, compared to downing a cup of watery coffee from a highway vending machine” 😮 Those are some pretty hefty claims I thought and I wasn’t about to just take their word for it so I kept it moving.
Fast forward to a last year when I discovered Penzey’s Spices, a cute little spice shop overflowing with easily over a hundred spices, herbs, herb blends, specialty ingredients and flavorings. But best of all you can sniff test before purchasing!!!! So I shot straight for the cinnamon and let me tell you, those King Arthur Flour people were not lying!
I had so many questions about all the cinnamon I’d used in my life up to that point. Talk about a spice induced existential crisis 🤣 snapped back to reality, bought a bottle and brought it home so the hubs could take a whiff and question his life too 😆. Ok, ok, enough of the dramatics, the point is: Vietnamese cinnamon is wonderful and worth the price.
Because the cinnamon is so rich it doesn’t really need anything else, but for the heck of it, I added a touch of ground pimento (Jamaican allspice) to half the batch which produced a butter with a deeper flavour and richer spice notes. If you prefer you could simply add your favorite spice mix in, whether it be a pumpkin spice blend or your homemade speciality (a chai spiced butter would be delicious!). If you’re looking for a bit of tang a splash of lemon juice would not hurt either.
The best pumpkin for pumpkin butter
My final note is on choosing the pumpkin, you want to go for one that’s on the dryer side and is deep orange in color as those tend to have less water, be sweeter and more “pumpkin-y” in flavour.
As I write this I am enjoying a cup of oatmeal which I’ve stirred some of the pumpkin ackee butter into, so delicious and comforting, it’s just the right thing for the chilly, overcast day it’s been. If oatmeal isn’t your thing, this butter would be awesome on waffles, muffins, biscuits, scones, quick bread or fried dumplings, just to name a few.
What do you think? As always feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. If you make this or any of the recipes from this site, be sure to #amazingackee and @amazingackee so that I can see your posts across social media.
Until next time, thanks for stopping by 😊
Pumpkin Ackee Butter
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup Roasted Pumpkin this was the yield after the skin was removed from roasting 1/2lb (8oz) of pumpkin
- 1/2 cup Parboiled/Canned Ackee, warmed packed into the cup when measuring
- 1 tsp Vietnamese cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
- pinch Sea salt
- 1/4 cup Maple syrup
- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp Ground pimento (Jamaican Allspice)
Instructions
- For the pumpkin
To roast pumpkin, preheat oven to 400F, line a tray with foil and spray or rub with oil to prevent sticking
- Cut pumpkin into thick but even pieces (if you have a large wedge for example you may want to cut it in half so the middle section isn't too large in comparison to the ends)
- Place the pumpkin on prepared tray (you can rub it with a little oil if you like but it isn't necessary) and roast until the pumpkin has become very soft
- To make the butter
- Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and blend till smooth.
- Taste and add more salt and maple syrup if desired
- Optional step: if your food processor has left you with a few pieces of ackee or pumpkin here and there, you can pass the mix through a fine sieve to get it silky smooth.
- Enjoy!
Notes