How to make winter squash molasses?

Drowning in winter squash? Let's make some molasses!
Do we juice, roast, boil or squeeze to get that sweet elixir?
Please share your winter squash (pumpkin, delicata, butternut, turban, hubbard, kabocha, acorn, buttercup...) molasses recipes. Thank you!

After posting this thread yesterday, I've been experimenting....
First try:
I roasted 7lbs of butternut squash in 2” slices for an hour at 375F. When cool, I scraped off the squash and put it into a fine mesh sieve over night. By morning I had about a cup of clear thin sweet squash juice. Reducing this by half produced a thin syrup. If I kept going, I could probably get a tablespoon of something resembling honey. Instead, I added the thin syrup to the next experiment.
Second try:
To try to get more liquid, I decided to boil the roasted squash in about a quart of water (enough to cover), then put the soft squash plus water in a blender to puree. Then I strained the liquid through a fine mesh brewing bag, keeping the squash in the bag for later use.  I reduced the liquid on the stove top until it became a smooth paste, not a a clear syrup. I added the 1/2 cup syrup from the first step and made some pretty good squash butter for toast (cinnamon, grated ginger, ground allspice, a pinch of salt plus a spoonful of pineapple juice concentrate).

While I rethink this molasses project, I’ll use the remaining quart of squash puree to make some "Test Kitchen Approved" savory squash custard.

I have been waiting for the recipes to flow in.

I like how your experiments are turning out though I might try doing this another way.

I thought about cutting the squash into small pieces and cooking it long and slow until it is mush then straining it like you have been doing.

Then fallowing your path for reducing it.

Love that word, "fallowing," Anne! It is the perfect word for gotta-give-this-project a rest.
Seriously hoping those actual molasses makers will come to the rescue!

I've never done it, but my first thought was to juice the raw squash, then boil down that liquid to molasses.

Jan White wrote:I've never done it, but my first thought was to juice the raw squash, then boil down that liquid to molasses.

I've never heard of squash molasses (sounds like a great idea). I guess the trick is to get the most sweetness out of the squash without adding too much extra water, so if you can juice it raw that would seem sensible.

Wow, interesting idea! I found this recipe online: https://www.evermine.com/blog/squash-molasses/

My feeling is that to maximise sweetness by transforming as much as possible of the carbs into sugars, baking first would be best. .

Nancy and Jan are probably right about juicing. Getting that liquid out of the squash would probably require some kind of cold press to keep the pulp out of the juice.
I have a masticating juicer which leaves pulp in the mix and couldn't handle lots of raw squash. Maybe there is a press that can squeeze squash but I imagine the investment would be pretty big. While my bounty is abundant for me, it is a home harvest rather than a farm crop.
As I eat leftover squash custard for breakfast, I am really grateful for all the kitchen experimenters at permies who find interesting things to do with too-much-of-a-good-thing.

Good find Jane! You've renewed my enthusiasm!

The one time I saw a recipe for sweet potato molasses, they wrapped the potato in tin foil before baking to not lose moisture while the sugars caramelized. I'm curious if that would work with the squash -- leave the small ones whole, or cut big ones into manageable pieces and cover or wrap before cooking, like a covered dish instead of aluminum foil. I wonder if a higher temp would make a difference? Last night, I roasted delicata squash pieces at 425F, and it was so good!

Now if I ever have a decent winter squash harvest, I want to give squash molasses a try!

This seems like a job for a steam juicer!
Though I do think roasting will bring out the most sweetness.

Just when I was about to give up, you have all offered many new ideas for this project: roasting in foil (or container), steam juicing (I'll try that with the roasted squash William) not to mention the specific boiling and roasting ideas in the blog that Jane found. Nikki, I wish that you could come on over and use this squash for your experiments!
Thinking about roasting, it seems like the caramelizing or Maillard reaction is giving that rich flavor. Would that caramel taste happen during the juice-reduction phase when the sugars slowly cook in the shallow reducing pan?
Also, while outside tending the garden, another thought popped up: what about freezing and thawing the squash? I remember how wet and soggy the pumpkins get after the deep freeze. Maybe that frozen and thawed mush could turn into more sweet juice? Maybe that frozen/thawed winter squash could be steam-juiced this winter?
This matrix of possibilities is growing ... like squash!

Hmmm, I probably won’t want squash molasses, because I follow food wisdom that advises against extracting sugars from the fiber they grow in,

But I didn’t always.😊

In the process of malting, enzymes break complex carbs and starch into sugars.  Sprouting barley is one source. I don’t know if barley enzymes would act on squash starch, but would this endeavor be complete without trying some enzyme?  I wonder how the starch in potatoes is converted to sugars for the fermentation of vodka, wasn’t that the original vodka?

How is brown rice syrup made from the starches in rice?  Could that process possibly be utilized?  Or does that involve industrial processes and toxic gick?

And now that I think of it, there are people somewhere on this planet who made a fermented palm wine.  The origin of the enzymes to break down the starches to sugars was their own saliva (salivary amylase I think).  Maybe they drank the last batch of wine while they chewed palm for the next batch?  Dunno what other amylases there are, sorry.

OK, here’s a link https://diydistilling.com/how-to-make-vodka-from-potatoes/

It says amylase is available from beer and wine making supply houses.  Originally, malt for potato to vodka process was malted barley or other grain, they did mention corn, which might be better for some folks.

Not that you have to ferment the molasses once you extract them…. simple reduction would get you to molasses, and you would likely get a lot more, if you had converted the starches to sugars

I think a champion juicer could juice raw squash flesh, and the dry pulp could be rewetted with fresh water, then re-pressed through the juicer, in a sense “rinsing” the sugars out of the pulp.  You could also take the juicer pulp, and add some form of amylase to that!  It would be raw, unless you took the temperature too high in the reduction process.

Have fun!

Amy Gardener wrote:Thinking about roasting, it seems like the caramelizing or Maillard reaction is giving that rich flavor. Would that caramel taste happen during the juice-reduction phase when the sugars slowly cook in the shallow reducing pan?

A good question.  I am not certain, but I think so!

Thekla McDaniels wrote:...I wonder how the starch in potatoes is converted to sugars for the fermentation of vodka, wasn’t that the original vodka?

No, I don't believe so.  Most vodka is made from grain.  Using potatoes in place of grain was, I believe, only a practice employed during the hardest of times when adequate supplies of grain were unavailable.

If you think about it, potato vodka couldn't be the original technique, since potatoes are a New World crop.  They've been making vodka in Russia a lot longer ago than 1492.

Thanks for catching me on that! they are new world!  And “vodka” goes back way before that… some sources say at least to the 700-800s.  And it was made from whatever they had at the time…

Consider making "butter" rather than molasses.  I've had great success with aged or aging vegetables of all kinds this way. Cook them slowly, covered with a bit of water over low heat, like you would apple butter.  You eventually get to the same soft, gooey, dark mass of deliciousness that can be used to darken and sweeten a stew, curry, sauce, or flavoring in something else. You can even combine the veggies to make one combo butter. It might also be good as a topping for toast. I've used whithered carrots, cabbage, turnips -- any winter veg actually. Cut off the spoiled bits, and determine if you want to use the skin, but use the rest.  If you have a food mill with a fine screen or a very fine sieve, you can press the mash through it to refine it -- it removes a lot of the fiber, but I don't find that it's necessary. Don't try it with zucchini or celery or other things like it. Experiment!  The worst that can happen is that the goo goes directly to the compost pile.  I can't tell you how many of my stove-top experiments have gone directly from the frying pan into the compost.

I forgot to say that I cool and put this mix in silicone ice cube trays and then freeze it. I push them out and put them in quart or gallon-size freeze bags.  It makes for great "portion control" cubes of yummy goodness to add to soups, stews, curries sauces, or whatever! What I'm saying is freeze it in portion-controlled masses -- you don't have to have a silicone cube tray.  I save tomato past this way -- open a can, dot a tablespoon-sized portion on parchment or plastic film, freeze. Once frozen, wrap and toss in the freezer. I don't know of a way to store it without a freezer.  Sorry.

This never crossed my mind before. I am very excited to see the results for the best method. I have been looking for an alternative to sugar that I can produce here on the farm. I tried bees but that proved not practical. Sugar from cane seems to involved. I have thought about looking into sorghum but all these seem like to many processes and to much equipment to be doable. But this looks like something that could really work. After you get your syrup could you dry it to make it more like granulated sugar for cooking and baking?

Does anyone have an apple grinder/crusher & cider press?

You could slow-boil the squash down like Barbara described, to get that soft buttery mash, then run it through a cider press to forcefully extract the liquid & leave the dry pulp behind.

This guy DIY'd a cider press out of a car jack & a wood frame:



And if you wanted to grind down the squash before simmering to make extraction easier, maybe DIY a fruit/vegetable grinder?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUT_1c7fdfU

A tincture press might work, and traditional medicinals sells a good one.

I had a cider press once, the kind with a screw, but I couldn’t make it work.  I had the pulp in a mesh bag, and the first pressure sealed the mesh, and the inner part retained its
fluid.  Same without the bag.  I thought maybe a gradual application of pressure was needed, but that didn’t work either.  I gave up.  Maybe someone else will have more success!  

It seems to me that pressing liquid out of cooked mash would be way harder and yield less than juicing raw. And, yes, you can definitely juice raw squash. I used to juice squash and/or sweet potatoes and blend up with oranges and spinach all the time. My juicer is one of those vertical auger ones. It leaves some pulp, but that's easily strained out through whatever fabric you like using for that sort of thing. I would think that boiling the juice down would caramelise the sugars just fine.

I agree with Jan White.. Kuicing raw vegetables will extract a lot more juice more quickly and probably cleaner too. I have both an auger-based juicer and the centrifugal force juicer. I have to say that the auger is better- more juice dryer pulp better outcome all around.
Once you have the juice you can try reducing it into a kind of vegetable leather. I'm not sure of the process to make a leather.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Hmmm, I probably won’t want squash molasses, because I follow food wisdom that advises against extracting sugars from the fiber they grow in.

Good point. I try to make "jams" rather than "jellies" for that reason, but even though I reduce the sugar where I can, I do use sugar.

However, a friend of mine loves a Christmas cookie that calls for molasses. Now you've got me wondering if I made some pumpkin "molasses" would it ruin the cookie recipe, or make it better?

I don't have as big a winter squash problem as many of you are describing, but the family pretty much will only eat it in pie, cookies or muffins.