“Martha Washington’s” Pumpkin Recipe

As I ramble along from topic to topic on this blog, I sometimes forget to circle back and elaborate, or add information that should have been included in the first place.

Writing about pumpkin bread recently, I linked back to an older post about cooking pumpkin dishes. Joanna, a reader, suggested I include a recipe of Martha Washington’s that I had alluded to in the older post.

Charles Wysocki’s Thanksgiving Dinner Music. Notice the pumpkin dish in the center of the table! (c. 1982 AMCAL)

But, nothing’s ever quite what it seems, is it? The recipe I remembered is not really for pumpkin soup, but a pumpkin pie.

We got the recipe from a clipping by syndicated columnist Jeff Smith. He says the dish was a favorite of George Washington’s, which I supposed does not mean that Martha Washington ever cooked it. At any rate, here it is:

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Baked Whole Pumpkin (Martha Washington’s Pumpkin Pie

1 pumpkin, 5-7 lbs

6 whole eggs

2 cups whipping cream

½ cup brown sugar

1 TBSP molasses

½ TSP cinnamon

¼ TSP ginger

2 TBSP butter

Cut the lid off the pumpkin and remove seeds just as you would to carve a Jack-o-lantern.

Mix the remaining ingredients, except for butter, together. Fill the pumpkin with the mixture and top with the butter. Cover with pumpkin lid and place in baking pan. Bake at 350° for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until mixture has set like custard.

Serve from the pumpkin at the table, scraping some of the meat from the pumpkin with each serving. Serves 8.

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Just the fact that the recipe calls for 6 eggs tells a lot about why we’ve never tried this. Still, it sounds good, doesn’t it?

But, as for pumpkin soup, while it might not have the venerable name of Washington attached to it, why not make your favorite pumpkin soup recipe in the shell this way?