Candied Butternut Squash

|Candied Butternut Squash|

This Candied Butternut Squash recipe has all the favorite flavors of the Candied Yams you grew up with but is made entirely from scratch, with real wholesome ingredients and natural sweetness from pure maple syrup.

So this recipe has a couple totally unrelated stories behind it.

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The first is the background for the recipe.

You see, we live in Midwest Michigan.  Where, one year we have 80* temps  in December and the next year we have 40* temps in July. You just never know what the growing season will do.

So as gardeners we *can* grow sweet potatoes here but it’s a lot  more work to make sure they stay warm for long enough to produce nice big yams. However, butternut squash grows quite well with very little work.

With the abundance of butternut squash we had this year, plus planning for Thanksgiving, it occured to me that we could possibly use the squash in place of yams. Maybe you’ve already thought of this, but it was an epiphany for me.

I began to research Candied Yam recipes and found them to be lacking.  Many of them included yams from a can, corn syrup, sugar, or sweetened condensed milk.

As a real food cook, these ingredients didn’t appeal to me all that much.  So I set out to create a Candied Butternut Squash recipe using whole, delicious ingredients. The bonus part of this recipe, to me as a homesteader, is that I can grow this entire recipe myself. How fun is that??

The second, unrelated part of the story is about how this recipe and photoshoot went down.

The Candied Butternut Squash recipe for the most part went without a hitch.  But when I made the meringue topping I way underestimated how much I needed.  Don’t worry though, I’ve already adjusted that for you in the recipe 😉

If you need other holiday food ideas be sure to follow me on Pinterest! And check out my other grain free, gluten free, or sourdough recipes!

Then when I went to shoot this recipe after having carefully spread the meringue onto the candied squash, making it all pretty and fancy looking, my children decided to join me in the room I was taking pictures in.  Not a big deal right?? Well my youngest daughter happens to be very accident prone, so it’s a little bit of a big deal.

Said child managed to wedge herself between my light reflector and the computer char, then proceed to panic and pull the whole thing down.  Thus messing up my beautiful meringue.

I thought about redoing the whole thing so you could have a perfect looking meringue and candied butternut but thought I’d just tell you how real life happens instead lol.

So here is the totally imperfect Candied Butternut Squash recipe complete with messed up meringue pictures 😉

Candied Butternut Squash

Ingredients

Candied Squash

1 medium-large butternut squash, peeled and chopped

2/3 cup butter

1 cup pure maple syrup

Dash of Cinnamon

Meringue

2 egg whites

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

Pinch of cream of tartar

Instructions

For the Squash

1. Place squash, butter, cinnamon and the 1 cup of maple syrup in a large pot.  Cover and cook on medium low heat, stirring gently occasionally.
2. Once the squash is fork tender place in a 11″ x 5″ baking dish (or dish of similar size) and set aside.

For the Meringue

1. Fill a small pot with about 2 inches of water and bring to a boil.
2. Place egg whites, 1/2 cup of maple syrup and cream of tartar in a small heat proof bowl. Place the bowl on the pot of boiling water. Be sure the bowl isn’t touching the water or it may curdle your egg whites.
3. Whisk constantly until the egg whites reach 160*f.
4. Once they have reached that temperature take them off the pan and either place them into the bowl of a stand mixer or transfer to another metal bowl to whisk by hand.
5. Whisk until stiff peaks are achieved and the meringue has become glossy and fluffy.

For Assembly

1. Cover the candied butternut squash with the meringue, spreading all of the meringue over the entire pan of squash.
2. Place under the broiler on HI for a few minutes until the meringue is toasted and brown.  Watch this carefully! It can brown very quickly!
3. Remove and serve warm!

Did you love Candied Yams growing up?? Have you ever had Candied Butternut Squash? What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish? Tell me all about it in the comments!