Maple Pumpkin Butter

I was rummaging through the freezer the other day and I came across some leftover canned pumpkin.  Hooray!  It's been months since I made something new and interesting from pumpkin.

Yes.  I wanted to make something new.

I've made a LOT of things from canned pumpkin: rolls, sloppy joes, pie, soup, cornbread, bars, granola, bread pudding, oatmeal, waffles, sweet bread, microwave mug cake for one, ice cream, pancakes, and bagels...just to name a few. 

Making something different was going to pose a challenge! 

I did some hunting and found a recipe for Maple Pumpkin Butter over at the blog called Chatelaine. 

How perfect and simple.  Blockette and Mrblocko both love pumpkin butter but I rarely buy it for them because it is always on the pricy side.  Not so with this version! 

I love pumpkin so I stock up when it goes on sale around Thanksgiving.  I also used my own pumpkin pie spice blend.  Then I used homemade maple syrup.  These things cut down on the cost as well.  Even if you buy your pumpkin full price, use real maple syrup and pricy spices, this will still be less costly, and taste better than the fancy little jars of pumpkin butter in your supermarket.

 The pumpkin I found in my freezer happened to be a scant 2 cups, so I used scant measurments of the rest of ingredients.  After cooking the concoction, the recipe yielded a heaping cup.

ingredients before cooking for a half hour.

Maple Pumpkin Butter from Chatelaine.
2 cups pumpkin purée
1/2 cup maple-syrup (I used home made maple flavored syrup)
1 tsp pumpkin-pie spice (make your own)

Combine pumpkin purée with maple syrup, pumpkin-pie spice and 1/4 cup water in a medium saucepan and set over medium. Cook, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens and turns dark brown, about 30 min.

One note of caution, I found that if I didn't stir the pumpkin butter constantly it bubbled up and made a mess over the stove.  So, I did what I do with most menial household tasks, I yacked it up on the phone.  Standing in front of the stove for 30 min just stirring and doing nothing else is boring!  So if you can't multitask, put on some good music before you begin this recipe.

After cooking...notice the deeper, darker brown color.