Pumpkin Butter | Two Plaid Aprons (2024)

Published: Oct 20, 2023 / Modified: Dec 19, 2023 by Mei / This post may contain affiliate links / Leave a Comment

This pumpkin butter is made with real butter and spiced pumpkin puree. It's fluffy, smooth, buttery, tastes slightly sweetened, and full of warm spices, which is perfect for the fall and the holidays! It's incredibly easy to make and requires only 5 ingredients. Try it with out pumpkin dinner rolls for the best fall dinner roll and butter combo or use it with your daily meals to make bread and baked goods extra tasty and irresistible!

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What is pumpkin butter

Pumpkin butter is often known as a fruit spread, like apple butter. However, our pumpkin butter is made with actually butter, making this pumpkin butter a compound butter.

It's made with cooked down, seasoned and sweetened pumpkin puree that's whipped with butter until light and fluffy. This pumpkin butter is super versatile, tastes AMAZING, and also stores really well.

What to use pumpkin butter for

This pumpkin butter is a very versatile condiment that's great for everyday meals and gatherings, especially during the fall and winter season. Here are a few ways that we like to enjoy it:

• Dinner rolls and bread - Pumpkin dinner rolls, milk bread loaf, toasts
• Breakfast - Japanese soufflé pancakes or regular pancakes, waffles, biscuits
• Baked goods - Biscuits, scones, muffins

Ingredient notes

Please scroll down to the recipe card for the ingredient quantities!

• Pumpkin puree - You can use either homemade or can pumpkin puree. If you're making your own homemade pumpkin puree, make sure to blend it as fine as possible. For store-bought can pumpkin puree, make sure to use 100% pumpkin puree, NOT pumpkin pie mix!
• Brown sugar - Either light or dark brown sugar is fine. Brown sugar offers a bit more deep, caramel flavor, but if you only have regular white granulated sugar, it's fine too.
• Pumpkin spice - Feel free to use store bought pumpkin spice or make your pumpkin spice mix if you already have these spices in your pantry:
  • 3TBSP ground cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 3 teaspoon ground cloves or ground allspice (or half and half of each)
  • 2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Salt - Just a little to help round out the flavor.
• Unsalted butter - We always recommend using unsalted butter so that you have total control of how your dishes and recipes taste. If you only have salted butter, you can use it, however, the butter may be a bit saltier than it should be. Make sure to omit the salt if using salted butter!

How to make pumpkin butter

Please scroll down to the recipe card for the full recipe and instructions!

1. Combine pumpkin mixture. Into a saucepan or nonstick pan, add the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, salt, and pumpkin spice. Mix until well combined.

2. Cook the pumpkin mixture. Cook the pumpkin mixture over medium heat until it's thick, looks smooth, and easily slips off the rubber spatula. Make sure to stir constantly with a rubber spatula.

3. Cool the pumpkin mixture. Transfer the cooked spiced pumpkin mixture onto heatproof plate and spread it out. Allow the mixture to cool completely before using. You can also let it cool in the fridge to reduce wait time.

4. Whip with butter. Once the spiced pumpkin mixture is completely cool, transfer it to the stand mixer along with the softened butter. Using the paddle attachment, whip the mixture on medium until combined. Scrape down the paddle and the bowl and whip on medium high speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides as needed.

📝 Note: This process can also be done using a hand mixer. However, it'll take a bit longer and the butter needs to be scraped down often and reincorporated.

5. Serve. You can serve the spiced pumpkin butter in butter containers or small ramekins. Use it within a few hours and refrigerate or freeze the rest. See "Storage" below for more details.

Recipe tip

• Stir the spiced pumpkin puree mixture constantly while cooking to prevent burning at the bottom of the pan.
• Cooking out the moisture until the puree is thick (not dry) is important for both flavor and the butter texture. Having excess moisture content can cause the butter to split and look broken.
• Use softened butter. This is essential for whipping up the fluffiest butter and also ensures that everything is well combined. If the butter is too cold, it'll be hard to whip up and could even damage the equipment.
• Add the spiced pumpkin mixture when it is completely cooled! If you use the pumpkin mixture while it's warm or hot, it'll melt the butter instead of making it fluffy.

Storage

Our pumpkin butter recipe makes a decent amount of pumpkin butter, which is perfect to store for later! Extra pumpkin butter can be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 3 months.

For storage, we recommend pre-portioning the butter so that you can soften and defrost as much as you need, rather than the entire thing. We like to divide our pumpkin butters into 2 to 3 tablespoon portions and wrapping them in cling wrap. They can be twisted into tight little logs that take very little space and store really well. You can do the same with small freezer-safe, airtight containers.

FAQ

📖 Recipe