How To Make Ginger Pumpkin Crumble And Kill Your Loved Ones With Butter

This week’s episode of Foodspin takes us to historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Burneko and I sampled Civil War-era game pie and pumpkin fritters. I am going to assume these were pro-Union dishes, and therefore NOT racist food. I assume this even though you can buy a SHITLOAD of Confederate souvenirs at virtually any gift shop in Gettysburg—those people know that’s a rich share of the marketplace.

Anyway, inspired by the Farnsworth House Inn (It’s haunted! OOOOOOOHHHHHH SPOOOOOKY) and its colonial fare, Burneko and I decided to go full pumpkin spice this week. You will find no trendy pumpkin spice bashing here. We even shopped at an orchard and took a goddamn hayride. Then we made a ginger pumpkin crumble that will both dazzle your family and kill them in a single, butter-soaked blow. Here’s the recipe:

FOR THE FILLING:

1 small sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1” cubes

1 butternut squash, peeled and seeded and cut into 1” cubes

1 stick of butter, melted

1 large can of canned pumpkin

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 orange

1 big knob of ginger, grated or chopped finely

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup mini marshmallows

½ cup milk

FOR THE CRUMBLE

1 1/2 sticks of butter, cold and cut up into small pieces

1 cup flour

2 cups oats

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup crushed ginger snaps

1 cup crushed popcorn (optional)

Set the oven to 400 degrees. Place the squash and sweet potato on a baking sheet and roast them until they turn brown, roughly an hour or less.

Get a bigass bowl and put the roasted squash and sweet potato in it. Then mash them into oblivion with a fork or a masher. Add all of the remaining filling ingredients and mix them together with a big spoon until they’re nice and smooth. Pour the filling into a large foil baking dish.

For the crumble, put the first five ingredients into a bigass bowl and mash it all up with your hands. This’ll take time because the butter will stick to your hands you’ll have to work it to make sure it’s spread through the mix. Add the snaps and popcorn and mash those in with your hands, too. Layer the crumble onto top of the filling, and then put the baking dish in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until the top is brown and crunchy. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Serves roughly a dozen people.