I have made squash butter before. Yearly, since I began spending more time in pastry, actually. Heretofore I have steamed the squash and blended it with pastry cream. This year I baked the squash (I had a pumpkin and delacato around), which really reduced the amount of liquid in it. In fact, since I wanted to go out while it was baking (to pick up my CSA box) I set the oven at 300*F and left them in for over an hour.
When I scraped the squash flesh into the VitaPrep I had some very dry squash without a drop of water anywhere. Happily I had not made my pastry cream, so instead I made a very light crème anglaise with whole eggs, not just yolks, milk, not cream, and no starch. I did add 50g more sugar, as there was none in the squash, as well as a little more salt.
My squash was in the VitaPrep, as well as an overflowing teaspoon of ground ginger, when I poured the still hot anglaise over it. Then I blended it really thoroughly as I didn’t intend on straining it. While it blended it foamed up a bit. I decided that was the milk, imagined it would have no lasting impact, put it in containers in the fridge, and went away.
Well, last night when I returned to my squash butter I realized that I had actually made squash mousse. The texture was light and airy. I was astounded and incredibly pleased. In celebration I made a whole-wheat Dutch Baby and scooped a large dollop of squash butter gone mousse on top.
Mmm. That experiment was exceptional! I wonder what next year will bring.
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