Roasted Sugar Pumpkins with Cheese "Fondue"
This recipe is adapted from Gourmet magazine.
by: Three Many Cooks
Serves: 6 to 8
Ingredients
- ¾ of a 15-inch baguette, cut into ½-inch slices
- 3 (2-pound) sugar pumpkins
- Salt and ground black pepper
- 1½ cups heavy cream
- 1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
- ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
- 2 cups each: coarsely grated Grueyere and Emmental cheeses, mixed
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Arrange baguette slices on large wire rack; bake until golden brown, about 7 minutes; set aside.
- Meanwhile, cut a 3-inch circle around each pumpkin stem; remove tops. Scrape out pumpkin seeds and fibers from interiors and tops; lightly season with salt and pepper.
- Whisk cream, broth, nutmeg, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper in medium bowl.
- Make 3 layers in each pumpkin in the following order: toasted bread, generous ⅓ cup cheese, scant ½ cup cream mixture.
- Cap pumpkins and place in a small roasting pan; brush with oil. Bake until the 450 degree oven until pumpkins are tender, about 30 minutes.
- To serve, scoop out portions of cheese, bread, and roasted pumpkin. We ate it with more toasted baguette crostini, but that is completely optional.
i love this idea! so cute.
This is what I call a “Gotta Try!” Holy yum!
Andy’s favorite thing is fondue, my favorite thing is pumpkin – this is a food marriage made in heaven for us! Will absolutely, positively be making this!
Oh my that looks delicious! And not as involved as I would have thought. It’s on my list of things to make real soon!
Sorry, I have one more question. It says the recipe is for 6-8, and calls for three pumpkins. Is is it meant to be scooped out and shared among all, or one pumpkin for two people? I thought it would be nice if each person got their own pumpkin, but that might be a bit much for some….not for me…but for some!!!
Pattie, it’s a communal dish, like fondue, and meant to be shared. But I think you can put the three pumpkins in the middle of the table and let everybody dig in. We believe at Sharon’s dinner party it was one big pumpkin, but since we were unable to find one that large, our recipe calls for the size we could find. If you can find smaller pumpkins, serving one, so much the better.
Hey Patti,
As Mom said, it’s communal. At the party, there were 8 people and three sugar pumpkins. We kind of congregated around the closest one…and scooped it onto our plates. And there was plenty of leftovers! If you could find small enough pumpkins (or big enough appetites 🙂 ), I guess everyone could have their own…
Hope you try it! It’s amazing!
love this! Amen
Thanks Pam and Sharon. I will try it with whatever size pumpkins I can find. Looks so good!
I have a Sweet Mama and Baby Blue Hubbard right now. Do you think this recipe would work with them or should I stick with sugar pumpkins? Thank you!
Yeah, I think–in terms of flavor–a hubbard or a sweet mama would be fine. (And so pretty!) Hubbards are very close to pumpkin, and sweet mamas are nice but definitely sweeter. The only thing I don’t know about is cooking time. Just cook til the flesh is tender and scoop-able!
Thank you Sharon! I cannot wait to try this; I have two squash lovers and we all love fondue. This is going to be fun 🙂
This sounds great! In looking at the recipe quantities, I have a question.
It say two cups EACH of the the two cheeses, but then calls for only on third cup of cheese in each of the three pumpkins? What am I missing here?
Thanks,
John
I made this for dinner last night, and it was fabulous!!! I pared down the recipe since there is only my husband and me at home; bought a cute little pie pumpkin and adjusted the recipe accordingly. I served it with brussel sprouts to offset the richness of the ‘fondue’.
Do yourself a favor and make this dish. It will make you smile.
I found my sugar pumpkins at a farm yesterday and am going to make this next weekend on my yearly weekend at the beach with my college girlfriends. I am so excited! It seems the perfect thing to have for sitting around the table, drinking wine and chating on our first night!
I have a question, and this may sound stupid, but do you eat the pumpkin too? Or is that part of the decor and/or added flavor?
You definitely eat the pumpkin–and a mouthful of cheese and bread and cream and pumpkin…. mmm mmm good! Now you’ve got me all excited about making these again very soon!
John,
The recipe calls for three layers in each pumpkin and each layer uses 1/3 a cup of cheese. That equals out to one cup of cheese per pumpkin so that’s three cups of cheese used total. That only leaves one cup leftover from the four the recipe calls for.