Pumpkin butter substitutes

Canned pumpkin puree reduced with brown sugar, spice and a little cider or lemon juice.

Best for

toast and bagels, swirling into oatmeal or yogurt, cheesecake swirl, thumbprints, cake filling, pancake topping

The right answer nearly every time, and it takes half an hour of mostly unattended simmering. Cook the puree with brown sugar, a splash of maple syrup if you like, apple cider or water, lemon juice and pumpkin pie spice over low heat, stirring often because it spits, until it has darkened and a spoon dragged through leaves a channel that stays open. Homemade tastes cleaner and less sugary than jarred and you control the spice. Two important notes: it must be kept refrigerated and used within about two weeks, and pumpkin butter cannot be safely canned at home, because pumpkin is a low-acid dense puree that home canners cannot reliably heat through. The National Center for Home Food Preservation advises against it; freeze it in small tubs instead.

Apples cooked down for hours with sugar and spice into a dark, thick, intensely apple-flavoured spread.

Best for

toast, oatmeal, cheesecake swirl, cinnamon rolls, pork glaze, cake filling, cheese boards

The nearest thing on the shelf and often shelved right next to it. The texture is a near-exact match, thick and smooth and spreadable, and it is spiced with the same cinnamon and clove profile, so it slots into any recipe that used pumpkin butter as a spread or a swirl. What changes is that apple butter is fruitier, tangier and noticeably sweeter, where pumpkin butter is earthy, mellow and more vegetal. In a swirl or a filling that reads as an improvement to many people; in something meant to taste specifically of pumpkin it is unmistakably apple.

Roasted mashed sweet potato or butternut squash cooked down with sugar and spice exactly like pumpkin butter.

Best for

toast, oatmeal, swirls and fillings, pancakes, biscuits, cheesecake

The closest tasting substitute of all, and in a blind tasting most people could not tell butternut from pumpkin, because commercial canned pumpkin is often a squash variety anyway. Sweet potato is sweeter and starchier, so reduce the sugar by a couple of tablespoons and add an extra squeeze of lemon; it also thickens faster and can turn slightly gluey, so add a splash more cider if it stiffens too much. Roast the vegetable rather than boiling it, since boiling makes the puree watery and the butter takes twice as long to reduce.

A quick stir-together version, cooked only briefly and thickened rather than reduced.

Best for

cheesecake swirl, muffin filling, frosting flavouring, oatmeal, cake layers, dip base

Good when you need pumpkin butter as a component rather than a spread. Warm everything in a pan for five minutes so the sugar dissolves and the raw canned taste cooks off, which matters because uncooked pumpkin puree has a distinctly tinny, vegetal edge. Without the long reduction it stays lighter in colour and less concentrated, so the flavour is milder and the texture wetter; if you need it stiffer, stir in a teaspoon of cornstarch and simmer two minutes more. Not a good option for spreading on toast, where the shallow flavour shows.

Other fruit butters cooked to the same thick spreadable consistency, sometimes spiced.

Best for

toast, cheese boards, pastry fillings, cake fillings, pork and duck glazes, oatmeal

These work whenever the job is thick spiced fruit paste rather than pumpkin specifically. Pear butter is the mildest and closest in sweetness, and it takes added spice well, so a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice stirred into half a cup gets it surprisingly close in aroma. Plum butter and lekvar are much darker, tarter and less sweet, which is excellent in pastry but obvious in a latte-style spread. All three are smoother and glossier than pumpkin butter, which has a slightly grainy, dense body.

Canned pumpkin pie mix, which is puree already sweetened and spiced, not the same as plain pumpkin puree.

Best for

oatmeal, swirls, pancake topping, coffee flavouring, cake filling, dips

A shortcut that half works. Pie mix is already sugared and spiced, so simmering it fifteen minutes to drive off water gets you something close to pumpkin butter with almost no seasoning to judge. The catch is that pie mix is formulated to set with eggs in an oven, so it is thinner and often sweeter than pumpkin butter, and the spice blend can taste flat and slightly artificial. Add a teaspoon of lemon juice and a pinch of fresh cinnamon to lift it. Do not confuse it with plain canned pumpkin, which needs the full sugar and spice added.