I saw this little guy at the farmers market over the weekend, and just had to have him! I haven’t experimented much in the squash family, so I was excited to make something new! My fiancé isn’t the biggest fan of squash, so I knew the way to win him over was to make it a sweet dish, so that was my starting point. After reading through some inspiring recipes online, I adapted this recipe from a great one found on Gluten-Free Bay (so yay, it’s also gluten free!).
Now just about anything tastes great with butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, maple syrup and brown sugar, right? Combined with this darling tender squash, it’s quite the afternoon treat! It would also be terrific as a healthy dessert (hey, squash = healthy). I was rather surprised when I looked over, and Kurt was enthusiastically scrapping the corners to get all the squash out (or was he after the last bits of butter? We’ll never know).
Sweet Dumpling Squash
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Cut the squash in half, and remove the seeds and extra bits with a spoon. Turn upside down, and poke some holes in the skin with a fork. Turn it back over, and place each half into a baking dish filled with an inch or so of water.
In each squash half, put the following ingredients, sprinkling spices on the top edge, too:
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon brown sugar
Bake uncovered on the middle oven rack for 40-45 minutes, or until tender. Each half enthusiastically serves 1!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
We love squash in this house and I just picked this up at the grocery store. Cooking it right now. The only change I would make is that I would cover it while cooking like I do my other squash. It has been in the oven 40 minutes uncovered and doesn’t look too much different than it did when I put it in. Still too hard to eat. When I cover my squash they cook quickly and are very moist and tender. I just covered this one. Hope it’s ready soon because I am HUNGRY!
Saw this little squash for the first time with the zucchini, yellow and acorn squash at the grocer’s yesterday. I decided to try it, as previously, it was always with the decorative gourds. I had no idea of what it was called or how to cook it! But your recipe sounds perfect altho I’ll substitute the I CAN’T BELIEVE ITS NOT BUTTER for butter and use the SPLENDA brn. sugar blend. I am on the nutrisystem plan and while zucchini, yellow and spaghetti sq. are unlimited veggies, I’m not sure about this one but I’ll check AFTER I taste it! hahaha Thanis for the recipe!
When you buy wonderful fresh vegetables, we often forget you get 2 for 1 price by saving the seeds. These squash can be grown in pots to provide you with decoration, flowers and more beautiful squash. Waste not want not.
These little squashes were on sale at my grocery store so I used your recipe to try them out. We aren’t a big fan of squash in our house but I thought we should try some new varieties and maybe we would change our minds. We’re still not totally sold on squash but I can tell if we were squash lovers this would be an awesome side dish. (I wrote about this on my blog…it was a horrible disaster of a dinner…but this was the only recipe that turned out the way it was supposed to! You can see the post here
) Thank you for sharing the recipe.
This is absolutely delicious.. We saw them in our grocery store last week and the acorn squash we made before had us set on trying another variety. Wonderful recipe. Thank you!
I know I’m over a year late to this party, but I was looking for a picture of a sweet dumpling squash online, which is how I landed here. I was trying to describe it for a friend with minimal success (“it’s like a photo negative of an acorn squash, but with stripes?”). Thanks for posting such a good pic! I am about to make ice cream out of my batch!
Try honey instead of sugar and syrup. Yum!
im gonna try putting some stuffing inside the halves for the last 15 min. of baking. this should be a great vegetarian dinner. stuffed squash is just as filling, and healthier than meat!
This was the first recipe I came across. I found the squash at Whole Foods and plan to make it tonight, but as a less sweet side. Watching the sugar, I will use brown sugar or I hear that Splenda has a new brown sugar. Gluten-free is great, but so in watching the glucose. I’ll let you know how it turns out. Thanks for posting this.
Smiling because I have the cousin to your squash…sitting on my counter. Pretty and a nice recipe as well.
Candice, I know, so cute! I hope you try the recipe and like it! At least you know the presentation will be good!
Thanks for the recipe! I too found this cute little squash at a farmer’s market and wanted to try it.