Baked Pumpkin Slices

Zurie's Note:

My late mother-in-law made pumpkin this way, and it's the only way (apart from pumpkin pie) I like pumpkin! It's awfully hard to give quantities: please use your own judgement too. I do not know what kinds of pumpkin you have: our most-used one is called Boer pumpkin and has orange flesh and white skin.

• Total Time: 55 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 45 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 10 slices pumpkin , peel left on, cut about 1/2 inch thick
• 2 teaspoons butter , heaped, per slice
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar , per slice
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon , per slice (or more)
• salt

Directions:

1. Oven: 325 deg F/160 deg C.
2. The pumpkin need only be washed, should not be too old. Do not peel it. Slice like melon, and remove seeds.
3. Arrange the slices either along the length of an oven dish, overlapping slightly, or in a round dish, again overlapping slightly.
4. Smear the butter over the slices more or less as much as 2 good teaspoons per slice, and please do use real butter.
5. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the buttered slices, and be generous.
6. Sprinkle cinnamon over the whole lot, and then sprinkle lightly with salt.
7. Bake until the pumpkin peel is soft and the dish looks done, with the sugar melted -- about 45 minutes. But please use your own judgement.
8. We often made this in the oven of a black coal-and-wood fired stove on a farm, and simply checked to see when it was done.
9. The pumpkin will be tender, of course, and the peel will taste like toffee and will be only slightly chewier, soft and edible. This is delicious if the pumpkin and flavours come together!

Reviews

[3KillerBs]

This is very tasty, but disappointingly wet. I used a kind of pumpkin known in the American south as a "clay pumpkin" -- which is particularly meaty and sweet. I thought that given the thickness of the flesh it might take a little extra time, but even after a full hour it didn't match the description in the recipe, being more steamed in its own juice than baked.

[Karen Elizabeth]

I am so glad I found this recipe, This is definitely the best way to prepare baked pumpkin! And so easy! I melted the butter and brushed it onto the slices, and then sprinkled the sugar and cinnamon with generous hand. It did indeed take around 45 minutes to bake. The pumpkin was meltingly tender with a wonderful, almost caramelised coating, and the skin is the best part, I think! Thank you, Zurie, for a marvellous recipe, that I will be making again...and again! :)