Once the temperature dips below 40 degrees and a significant layer of red-gold leaves litter the ground, the texts from my friends trickle in.
"Cheese pumpkin?!" one writes.
"Hey, it's been a while. Let's get together!" says another.
"Remember that cheese pumpkin you made that one time? Could you send me the recipe?" writes a friend who lives in Atlanta.
Like Linus in the Peanuts comic strip, the mere mention of this great pumpkin, a whole roasted, burnished gourd filled to the brim with bubbly cheese and broth-cream soaked bread, inspires frenzied delight. My friends wait for it every year.
For one, the thing is super impressive looking. Who else has dared to roast an entire pumpkin this month? I’d venture to say very few. Pulling it out of the oven is sheer theater: Cheese oozes out from the now-tender pumpkin lid and your arms tremble (or at least mine always do) hoisting the weighty pumpkin from the hot oven to the countertop.
Secondly, it’s essentially fondue in an edible vessel. Build it and they will come, no invitations or annoying group messages required. Whenever my plans to make cheese pumpkin over the weekend come up in conversation, people invite themselves over. And let me tell you, those enticed by bread, cheese, and autumnal produce make for good company.
I came across the recipe when I interned at this magazine in college. I remember dog-earing Canal House’s Pumpkin Soup with Gruyère because the whole, lightly bronzed pumpkin looked so good in the picture. Halloween was coming up and, apart from pumpkin pie, I’d never thought of carving up one of these oversized jack-o-lanterns to eat. I planned to take the issue home and make it for my roommate that weekend, but as luck would have it I forgot my magazine in the office. I decided to Google it instead.
Entering "cheese pumpkin bon appetit" in the search bar yielded Ian Knauer’s Cheese-Stuffed Pumpkin, a simpler version of the Canal House soup with two kinds of cheese (win!), slices of baguette instead of breadcrumbs, and fewer ingredients. I was into it.
Over the years I’ve modified the recipe a bit to work for a bigger pumpkin. My favorite version is with 10(ish) pound Long Island Cheese pumpkin, but any kind of large eating variety, like Cinderella, Lumina, or Sugar Pie, work great. With a sharp knife cut a wide circle around pumpkin stem and remove the top. Scrape out all of the seeds and any loose fibers from inside and season the inside with salt and pepper. If you're feeling ambitious, save the seeds and roast them. Boom, built-in party snack.
Now turn your oven on to 450 degrees and remove all the racks except one in the lower third. While it’s preheating, cut one 15" length of baguette (or two if your pumpkin is bigger) into ½" slices. Arrange them in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast the bread (working in batches if you need to) until the tops are golden brown. At this point move the pumpkin onto a sturdy sheet tray and begin layering toasted bread and handfuls of shredded Gruyère, Fontina, cheddar or any kind of melty cheese (you’ll need at least 16 oz. worth). Sprinkle salt, pepper, and a little cayenne as you layer. Then fill the whole thing up with a mixture of 1 cup of chicken or vegetable broth and 1 ½ cups heavy cream. Put its lid back on and rub the outside of the pumpkin with vegetable oil.
Bake until the pumpkin’s flesh is yielding (prod the lid with a fork to check) and the filling is bubbling around the lid, usually after 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours. Serve in bowls, scooping out some of the soft flesh and custardy cheese filling. Perhaps Linus right: There is a great (cheese-filled) pumpkin after all.