TL;DR (Quick-Answer Box)
- What it is: Kabak Tatlisi is Turkey’s love letter to fall: hunks of pumpkin or squash slow-roasted until they soften in their own sugary juices.
- Why you’ll love it: It’s gluten-free (naturally, not in that “try-hard” way), blissfully easy—five ingredients and no drama—and filled with deep, caramelized pumpkin flavor, made even more decadent with butter-toasted walnuts and a swirl of cream.
- How to make it: Toss pumpkin chunks with sugar, then slow-roast until they’re tender and syrupy. Cool + serve with buttery walnuts.
Jump To
Pumpkin with walnuts is a surprising and easy-to-make Turkish recipe called kabak tatlisi. The cooking method is sorta fascinating: First you macerate chunks of pumpkin in sugar until they weep, then you cook the squash at a low temperature. As the squash chunks cool, they absorb the syrupy juices. The dessert—yes, pumpkin for dessert—goes beautifully with walnuts and a cultured cream such as crème fraîche or even yogurt.
What Can I Use in Place of Pumpkin?
Yes, it’s had to find good baking pumpkins. And don’t be tempted to repurpose your Jack-o’-lantern pumpkin, as we can guarantee it’s going to be bland. Cookbook author Paula Wolfert suggests using any winter squash with an orange interior that’s dense enough to hold its shape through cooking, such as butternut or Hubbard squash. If you happen upon something called “sugar pumpkins” or “pie pumpkins,” they’ll work, too. All of these varieties will produce an appropriately sweet dessert with an intense flavor and tender, almost velvety texture.
How to Peel Pumpkin or Squash
As stated above, whatever gourd you go for, bear in mind that oddly shaped squashes can be tricky to peel. We suggest sticking with a relatively smooth butternut squash, which is far easier to peel than a bumpy gourd. Here’s how you do it. Simply take a sharp chef’s knife and carefully halve the squash lengthwise. Scoop out those stringy seeds (a grapefruit spoon works really swell for this), then place the squash, cut-side down, on a cutting board or other work surface and run a vegetable peeler along its length. Tada! Easy peasy peeling with all fingers accounted for and intact.
More Gourd-geous Pumpkin Recipes
Trade in that boring fall loaf for a stunning glazed pumpkin pound cake drenched in a dreamy sugar glaze. And for the love Jack o’Lanterns everywhere, don’t you dare throw away those seeds after carving! Turn them into a batch of addictively crunchy spiced pumpkin seeds. If you’re feeling ambitious on Thanksgiving, a fluffy and dramatic pumpkin meringue pie is my answer. But why stop at dessert? Bring that pumpkin sass to the main course with a simple versatile pumpkin pasta dough recipe that’ll have everyone questioning their alligence to turkey.
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If you make this recipe, or any dish on LC, consider leaving a review, a star rating, and your best photo in the comments below. I love hearing from you.–David
Turkish Pumpkin with Walnuts | Kabak Tatlisi
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 to 1 3/4 pounds pumpkin, or other sweet, edible winter squash such as butternut or Hubbard
- 1 cup superfine sugar, (or you can make your own by blitzing granulated sugar in a blender until fine but not powdery)
- 1 teaspoon unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup walnuts, (halves or pieces), preferably freshly shelled
- 1 cup cultured cream, such as crème fraîche, whipped cream, or Greek yogurt (optional)
Instructions
Prepare the pumpkin
- Peel and trim the 1 1/3 to 1 3/4 pounds pumpkin. You should have about 1 pound. Cut the squash into 1-inch chunks.
- Toss the pumpkin with the 1 cup superfine sugar in a shallow ceramic baking dish and let stand until the squash weeps and the sugar dissolves, at least 30 minutes and perhaps as long as 1 hour.
Roast the pumpkin
- Crank the oven to 300°F (150°C).
- Use a wooden spoon to toss the pumpkin and sugar. Cover with a crumpled sheet of damp parchment paper and bake for 1 1/2 hours, until the juices bubble and the pumpkin is tender throughout. Turn off the oven but do not remove the dish. Instead, let the pumpkin cool inside the warm environment so it can continue to reabsorb the syrupy juices. Store the pumpkin and its syrup in a cool place or in the refrigerator to allow the flavors to meld. Let the pumpkin return to room temperature before serving.
Assemble the dessert
- Just before serving, melt the 1 teaspoon unsalted butter in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the 1/3 cup walnuts and cook, tossing frequently, until they're glistening. Spoon the squash and a few teaspoons of the syrup into individual serving bowls and sprinkle with the toasted walnuts. Garnish with dollops of 1 cup cultured cream, whipped cream, or yogurt, if desired.
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Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Recipe Testers’ Reviews
This was so good. It does need the walnuts, but I could see other nuts working here, too. My brother-in-law and husband thought about Thanksgiving. My brother-in-law also thought it reminded him of his grandmother. I couldn’t find a 1 1/3-pound butternut squash. I found the smallest one possible and it was 1 3/4 pounds. There’s enough sugar to cover this amount. I turned off the oven after 1 1/2 hours and left it in the oven as directed. Then I served it later for dessert. It was perfect. I would definitely make this again—maybe with other squashes and with other nuts.
Paula Wolfert. If you aren’t already a fan of hers from other terrific recipes on the site—Ribollita in the Style of Siena, Dandelion Greens with Duck Fat, and Therapeutic Drink to Ward Off Colds—then let this be a marvelous introduction. This recipe is easy, well worth the time it takes, and a lovely dessert which could be served alone or on a little buffet of desserts. It’s rich, colorful, and not your predictable Turkish or Middle Eastern sweet ending of baklava; in fact, it was rich enough to serve without the crème fraiche. The directions are terrific, accurate, and helpful. I went right from cooking the squash to cooling the squash and then serving. A little goes a long way! Although it serves 4, it could easily serve more in a smaller, but still satisfying, serving size. What would you eat before this? The site is full of options, of which I will list a few of my personal favorites: warm lentil salad; Japanese cucumber salad; rice pilaf with dried cherries and toasted pistachios; Middle Eastern Salad; Pomegranate Walnut Relish. Sweet tea would be a lovely accompaniment.
I wasn’t sure about this recipe but was intrigued enough to try it. Am I ever glad I did. This is a very simple, refreshing dessert. I used butternut squash and followed the recipe exactly—well not really. I used regular granulated sugar and let the squash sit with the sugar for about an hour before it hit the oven. The syrup was fantastic and the texture of the squash was almost meaty. We served it with plain Greek yogurt and it was the perfect complement to the sweetness of the syrupy squash. I toasted the walnuts just a little longer than called for and the crunchiness was a nice touch to the softness of the squash. I will make this again!
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We came across this delicious pudding in a restaurant in Tashkent called Istanbul. As we don’t speak Turkish or Uzbek and they did not speak English we used drawing and google translation to identify the ingredients. Brilliant, I’m making it now.
Superb, Stockwell!
I’ve just eaten this in the Istanbul Hilton and was bowled over by it!! So glad to find the recipe here!!!
Wonderful, Lucy! We know how disappointing it can be to have a memory of something and not the know-how to recreate it, so we’re so glad that’s not the case for you!
Wow! What a great recipe. It reminds me of some Afghani squash recipes I adore, only sweet. I love Paula Wolfert, but this book was completely off my radar. I’ll have to give it a try, now that we’re in the midst of “pumpkin” season. It’s great that you come up with these things I managed to miss. Thanks David and the LC crew!
ruthie, just doing our job, ma’am. Just doing our job.