Gluten-free Pumpkin Gnocchi

Autumn and everything-pumpkin go hand in hand. Some add pumpkin flavoring to everything, some go after the pumpkin aesthetic, and some write an instructable about their pumpkin shaped pumpkin gnocchi endeavors.

In this instructable you will learn how to make a simple pumpkin gnocchi dough and how to form cute gnocchi pumpkins. The recipe can be regular or gluten-free. The differences in preparation and the taste are negligible. As a bonus, I have also included a recipe for a creamy bacon sauce that goes well along with them.

For the pumpkin gnocchi you will need:

• 1 kg of pumpkin (Butternut or similar; 1 kg of raw pumpkin yields roughly 750 g of pumpkin puree)
• 750 g of flour
• one egg
• a pinch of salt
• a pinch of nutmeg
• pepper (to taste)
• cloves (for aroma, but mostly for decoration)

And, if you fancy the creamy bacon sauce, you will also need:

• 350 ml of cream
• 300 g of bacon
• three shallots
• parmesan cheese
• a dash of olive oil
• a pinch of nutmeg
• a pinch of thyme
• pepper (to taste)

Wash the pumpkin and slice it up. Aim for around 2 cm thick slices (up to an inch, Americans). The butternut pumpkin has very few seeds, but you will need to remove the ones that there are. Once done, line the baking tray with baking paper and arrange the pumpkin slices.

Set the oven to 180 °C (360 °F) and bake for 45 minutes, flipping the pumpkin slices mid way through. The goal of baking is to soften the pumpkin.

Now you have to remove the skin and mash the pumpkin. If you know how to make mashed potatoes, you don't need a random guy from the internet to tell you how to mash a pumpkin. Feel free to use your preferred way. In my experience the smoothest pumpkin puree is obtained by using a potato masher for the initial pass and then processing the puree through a sieve to remove the strands that are present in the pumpkin.

Weigh the obtained puree and move on to the next step.

The amount of ingredients depends on how much pumpkin puree you have. You will need roughly the same amount of flour as the pumpkin puree and one egg per roughly 750 g of pumpkin puree. You can either use regular white flower or a gluten-free alternative. This dough is very forgiving to the selection of flour.

Add salt, nutmeg and pepper to the processed pumpkin. Grind the spices in a hand mortar or use powdered ingredients as no one wants to bite into a big chunk of pepper.

Add eggs and two thirds of the required flour to the mix to begin with. Mix the ingredients with a kitchen robot or by hand. Once the dough is homogenous, check if it has enough flour. It should not stick to your dry hand, but should be a little bit tacky. If the dough feels too wet, add some flour and continue mixing.

When the dough is finished, you should leave it to rest for at least thirty minutes. Just enough time to clean the utensils you used up until now:)

Spread some flour on the work surface so the dough won't stick to it and roll the dough into ropes. When rolling, add as much flour as you feel you need but try to keep it to a minimum. The ropes should be as long as you want, but the diameter should be about the size of a 2 EUR coin (a 1.95 USD coin at the time of writing. Sorry, I will escort myself out:)

Cut the strands into chunks. Their length should be about the same as the diameter of the rope. Now you have two options. You can be lazy and call it done, or you can spend roughly eleven seconds a piece to form the pumpkins.

Roll the chunks into balls and, using the blunt side of a table knife, press half way through the balls three or eight times to start a six or eight lobed pumpkin, respectively. If the dough is sticking to the knife, powder the knife with a bit of flour.

To finish the pumpkin's base shape, you have to complete the started lobes. Once again, use the back side of a table knife. Be gentle with the pumpkins so they don't get damaged. Put up a podcast and sculpt them all.

Keen eyed among you will have noticed that the pumpkins are missing the stems. That is all by design. Stems are added just before serving, otherwise the taste of cloves (used for stems) would be overwhelming.

With the pumpkins formed, you have two options. You can either cook them right away, or freeze them for later use. Either way, the cooking procedure will be the same.

Boil salted water and add the gnocchi. At first the gnocchi will sink and you should quickly stir the water to prevent the gnocchi form sticking to the bottom. Keep the water boiling until all of the gnocchi start floating. That is when they are done and can be taken out. The transition will be rather sharp and very noticeable, just take a look at the photos.

The only thing the pumpkins are now missing are the stems. That is when cloves come into play. Just press them into the pumpkins and you're good to go.

That's it, cute pumpkin gnocchi are done!

If you are going for a fancy serve, add a clove to each pumpkin, but if you are going for a more self service kind of approach, I suggest you only decorate a few. What I usually do, is to serve only a few fully decorated pumpkins, with the rest of the gnocchi being a simpler shape.

If I photographed the gnocchi on a creamy bacon sauce, you can rightfully expect a recipe.

Cut the bacon into small strips, mince the onions, grate the parmesan, and heat up a pan.

First brown the bacon. If your pan is "non-stick" only in the name, add a dash of olive oil. When done, take the bacon out of the pan and set it aside. You can substitute the bacon for prosciutto or pancetta, but then you should skip this step.

Next suté the onions until they turn clear, once again adding a dash of olive oil if needed. Keep stirring the ingredients vigorously, so you don't burn them. Add the bacon back in, and add the nutmeg, pepper, and thyme as well. Keep the heat up for a few minutes, before pouring in the cream and adding the parmesan. Stir everything so the cheese dissolves and keep heating until the sauce thickens a notch.

That is it. Serve, enjoy, and comment if you liked it!