The ultimate pumpkin gnocchi

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Velvety and soft, the ultimate pumpkin gnocchi. Combine them with a simple buttery sage or a full fledged creamy sauce for a perfect meal.

Prep Time1 30

Cook Time30

Total Time2

Servings 6

Calories: 205.8 kcal

Preheat the oven at 200°C.
Clean the pumpkin from dirt and wipe dry.
Cut into wedges. Peel away the skin and take out the seeds from each wedge.
Cut wedges into pieces so that each piece is around 2cm thick.
Place cut pumpkin on a baking tray and add the maple syrup, butter (cut into small pieces), and olive oil. Mix so that all the pumpkin is coated with the wet ingredients.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Check whether the pumpkin is baked. If you can easily mash one piece with a fork it is baked.
Take the pumpkin out of the oven and leave to cool on the counter until it reaches room temperature.

Add the baked cooled pumpkin to the food processor. Pulse until it is almost mushed. (Note 1)
Add potato starch, softened butter, zest of one lemon, grated nutmeg, and the egg yolk to the mashed pumpkin.
Pulse a couple of times until all ingredients are almost incorporated.
Add the flour and pulse until it starts to come together. Don't overmix. Once there are no large dry patches of flour it is done. Don't worry if all the dough is not in one big lump. (Note 2)
Dust the clean wooden surface with a little bit of flour. Take all the dough out of the food processor and onto the flour-dusted board.
Bring the dough together into an oval shape.

Cut the dough across (along the short edge) so that each piece is around 2cm thick.
Roll each piece into a long cylinder shape so that in diameter the cylinder is 1cm thick.
Using a sharp knife or a dough spatula cut each rolled out cylinder into 1cm x 1cm pieces. (Note 3)
Dust the cut pieces with some flour. Using the gnocchi board take one cut out piece and with a thumb, gently pressing downward (½ of the initial gnocchi size), roll it forward until it flips over itself. Repeat with the rest of the cut pieces. (Note 4)
At this point, you can cook the gnocchi in the boiling salted water or freeze them.

Take two baking sheets and place parchment paper on top.
Arrange the prepared gnocchi on the baking sheet leaving at least 1cm space between them.
Place them in the freezer and freeze until completely firm. They will be a bit whiter once frozen.
Take them from the freezer and scoop all the gnocchi into a freezer-safe container or a ziplock bag.

You can use the frozen gnocchi in the same way as you would the fresh ones. Just add them to the boiling water and cook them until they all start to float on the water surface. Leave for additional 10-15 seconds and scoop them out of the water and add to your desired gnocchi sauce.

It is important to first pulse the pumpkin so that every consecutive pulse is as short as possible. We don't want to overmix the dough, especially once we add the flour as this will increase the chewiness of the final gnocchi.
Here we use T00 flour which is very soft flour and generally used for pizzas and bread. Here, if not overmixed, provides for a nice soft structure of the final gnocchi.
We want small initial gnocchi because when you shape them on the gnocchi board they will stretch a bit. Also when they are cooked they expand by almost a third.
If you never shaped gnocchi this way don't worry if they don't turn out perfect. It takes some practice. Even if you skip this step it will be fine, they will still taste wonderful. If the gnocchi sticks to the gnocchi board just add a bit more flour.

* Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.