Tis the Season for Pumpkin Butter
Pumpkin butter is great on toast, muffins, pancakes, apple slices, and just about anything you can spread it on. Pumpkin butter is also something you can incorporate into vegetables and sides to add a little autumn flavor. Try it with carrots, butternut squash, or sweet potato. A side dish like glazed carrots is a no-fuss, easy addition to your Thanksgiving table. I really like the added crunch of the pecans and the plump raisins (although I leave the raisins out when I make this for my kids... can you believe that neither likes raisins?)
Harvest Glazed Carrots
3 cups coined carrots (cut into disks) or 1 bag baby carrots
2 Tbsp Pumpkin Butter
¼ cup raisins
¼ cup whole pecans
1) Steam carrots until crisp-tender.
2) Stir in pumpkin butter, raisins and pecans.
Prep and cooking time: 10-15 minutes
Serves 4
Pumpkin butter is also a great sweet-spicy filling for puff pastry turnovers. I've raved about Trader Joe's frozen Puff Pastry before...I remember the day when Wona literally called me from the TJ's frozen foods aisle squealing with delight that TJ's was carrying puff pastry. Happens that I was also at my local TJ's and walked over to look. Really, it was just a coincidence...we don't live there contrary to what many people think!
Puff pastry seems simple enough... it's just a few ingredients: water, flour, butter, and salt. However, it's one of the more time-consuming, laborious things to make. It's a process of repeatedly folding together the dough and butter, chilling in between, and folding again to make the multitude of layers. It can take longer than a day. Lucky for us, we have wonderful frozen puff pastry dough ready to go. Get creative...you can fill them with any kind of fruit spread, jam, bruschetta, or cheese.
Pumpkin Spice Turnovers
1 package frozen Artisan Puff Pastry, thawed
Pumpkin Butter
1) Preheat oven to 400°
2) Cut each puff pastry sheet into 4 equal squares.
3) Place 1 Tbsp pumpkin butter or other filling in the center of each square.
4) Fold into a triangle, then press and seal the edges.
5) Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. They might leak a little-the oozing filling and the caramelized edges just add to the delicious rustic look.
Prep and cooking time: 25 minutes
Makes 8 pastries
Tip: If you want to maximize the puffing, trim a tiny bit from the entire perimeter of each sheet before dividing the sheets. Freshly cut edges will puff up even more.
Yum, I love the flavors of fall! I just saw Cranberry Apple Butter, in the same jar as Pumpkin Butter. I bet that would e great in the turnovers too. Thanks for the tip!
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try serving the pumpkin butter over cream cheese with crackers for a quick fall appetizer. Delish. (you can also serve it over goat cheese)
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I love the Trader Joe's puff pastry too. I use it all the time for easy little appetizers.
Pumpkin butter + cream cheese sounds great too. Maybe I'll try it in the puff pastry.
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Made this the other day...cooked for the correct time and temp but was still undercooked in the middle. Do you turn it over during the baking time? Should I have left it to defrost longer? I am stumped! Please comment.
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Hi Donna,
For the pastry puff recipe, make sure of a few things:
1.) Make sure your oven is fully preheated to 400 F. (This usually takes about 10 minutes with most ovens).
2.) Make sure your puff pastry is thawed (about 10 minutes from frozen). The pastry should be flexible and thawed, but not left out long enough that it is getting gooey.
There should not be any need to turn the pastries over during the baking time and it should not take any longer than 15 minutes (although some ovens do vary a little). The directions on the back are accurate according to our experience, even with various fillings.
Were the edges of the pastry browned and had the pastry puffed up (like in the photograph)?
Give it another try and let us know how it turns out. Good luck! The puff pastry is great for little holiday appetizers. You can even cut it into little squares (9 per sheet) and top it with dollops of bruschetta, goat cheese, apple slices, etc.
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Thanks for your quick response...I did have the oven preheated for a good 20 min. The pastry was brown on the edges and puffed - so I thought it was done. I will try again - thanks!
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