Doce de Abóbora: Sweet Pumpkin Compote

When we saw this photo, the bright orange jam made us sit up and stare. What was this intense orange stuff?

Turns out it's doce de abóbor - which is Portugese for sweet pumpkin. It's a traditional sweet found most commonly in Brazil, where sometimes it's made very firm and chewy like a candy, and other times soft like a preserve. It's often made with dried coconut, too.

This just sounds incredibly good to us - especially when we think of making it with butternut squash, as Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen did. We may try her recipe this week:

• Butternut squash compote – doce de abóbora

Have you ever tried doce de abóbora? How about sweets and preserves made with other "vegetables"? One of our favorite desserts is the Indian carrot halwa - rich, milky khoya cooked with shredded carrots, spices, and raisins. It's so good!

We'll definitely let you know how it turns out. Who knows - it may go into our rotation of favorite jams.

Related: How To Cut a Pumpkin

(Image: Flickr member red betty black licensed for use under Creative Commons)

Comments (9)

Are these pictures from Borough Market, London? The Estremoz honey, to the far right of the picture, is one of my favourites. And the prices at this Portuguese stand aren't bad, either.

posted by shiras on October 27th 2008 at 11:42am
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my mother makes doce de abóbora... yum! She makes a cornmeal cake with it, using brown sugar which i find absolutely irresistible as well.

posted by sweetie on October 27th 2008 at 11:59am
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Tomato jam is my all time favourite

posted by xieta on October 27th 2008 at 11:15pm
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Oh, and speaking of pumpkins, here in Valencia (Spain) there's a very typical recipe that comes from back when we were all muslims here ( 500 years ago!) and it's made with pumpkin, almonds and sugar. I've been trying to find the recipe online in English, but they were either bad (you need at least 1x almonds to 3x pumpkin) or terribly written. The name, if you want to do some research, is arnadí.
I may blog the recipe soon.

posted by xieta on October 27th 2008 at 11:23pm
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Try it! It is an amazing dessert. Simple and delicious. Even better with some fresh cheese.

posted by Ferdinand on October 28th 2008 at 1:21am
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cheese sounds like a great idea.

posted by lisadinnerparty on October 28th 2008 at 5:53am
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I love doce de abóbora... hum... nham... nham... nham...
My recipe is a little different; I use just 2 big spoons of sugar. The pumpkins are naturally sweet.
Other secret is use little water to cook the pumpkins.
Oh, if I knew English, I could to explain better about this divine desert.

posted by ziiip on October 28th 2008 at 7:41am
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I have to step in... 'abóbora' is the Portuguese word for pumpkin, 'doce' is the word for compote/jam. Anyway, I can't tell about Brazil, but this is very Portuguese, from Portugal!
Here it is not make firm or chewy, it is soft and 'creamy'. We never add coconut, but instead we add cinnamon sticks while it cooks and you might even see it with thin slices of almonds - it's the way I like it. You can either eat it with bread, toast, or with some sort of ricotta cheese we call 'requeijão'. Beware that in Brazil, 'requeijão' is a total different thing. http://www.cmmangualde.pt/image/fotos%20gastronomia/requeij%C3%A3o%20e%20doce%20ab%C3%B3bora.jpg

posted by Ana Almeida on October 28th 2008 at 12:20pm
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Faith, thank you for mentioning my recipe - that was great!

I do hope you try the recipe and share your opinions with us. To answer some of the comments - there are other recipes that call for water, but not this one; all the liquid here is the juices released by the squash in contact with sugar and heat, which makes the flavor even stronger. So good.
As for Ana Almeida's comment, many recipes here were inherited from Portugal from the time Brazil was a colony (thank heavens for independence!). Some of them have been modified to fit our taste, as well as many of the recipes the Portuguese brought centuries ago had to be modified to substitute ingredients that could not be found here.

posted by Patricia Scarpin on October 30th 2008 at 8:21am
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