Carving Pumpkins: Like A Boss!

PUMPKINS! Now imagine I said that in the voice of Lego Spaceship Guy from The Lego Movie.

There are so many ways to carve a pumpkin, from traditional Jack-o-Lanterns to intricate sculpting. The first thing I can suggest is to invest in some kind of carving kit. Generally, regular kitchen knives are too big to do a whole lot with design-wise. And a scoop tailor made for pumpkin carving is much easier than using a spoon! You can get a super basic kit, or spring for a super decked out one. The most important things you need are: A good scoop (for scooping), a thin knife (for carving), and a pokey stick (for poking).

Lifesavers - ALL OF THESE!

Fun Fact
There is a difference between carving pumpkins and eating pumpkins!

• A sugar pumpkin (also known as a pie pumpkin) is smaller in size in comparison to a carving pumpkin. The innards (pulp) has a sweeter taste and better texture and there is often more of it in relation to the size of the pumpkin. This makes it much better for cooking and eating. You can still carve them, too, it just is a little more difficult as you'll have less space to work with. 
• A carving pumpkin, on the other hand, was intentionally allowed to grow larger to make it easier to carve. As a result, the guts are much more stringy and grainy. Although you could puree the pulp into something edible, it wouldn't taste anywhere near as good as from a can or sugar pumpkin.

Let's get to the carving!

Clear a large-ish space, I chose to do it on the floor. I recommend cutting up a garbage bag to work on - cleanup will be a breeze!

It's okay to squeal in excitement

Crack that pumpkin open! Make a circular opening in the top so you can scoop out the guts (you'll want to use a big knife, not your little carver). Don't make a perfect circle, though. Make sure you make a tab so that it will be easy to put back on. Also, make sure you cut at an angle - otherwise your lid will just fall through!

Look at that gorgeous angle

Using a combination of scoop and hands, gut that pumpkin! Scrape it as clean as possible. The less pumpkin ick left behind, the longer it will last.

Squishy!

This process will take quite a while, so make yourself comfortable and put on a festive Halloween movie!

That's one clean pumpkin

Don't throw your squishy innards away! Set them in a bowl and put them aside until later - I'll tell you what to do with them.

INNARDS! 

Time to carve! There are a few different ways to do this. You can freestyle a traditional face, use a template, or draw your own template. Carve anything you want into the pumpkin! My first pumpkin this year was a large letter G, for my last name.

I'm so classy

It's super simple to do. Pick a letter (or a couple letters if you want to do a full monogram) and make it huge in word. Pick a font. Remember, you'll be carving this into a pumpkin - a font with large lines will work best. For letters (such as D), use toothpicks to hold the middle in place.

For the other pumpkin, I found a super cute raven template. I also found a load of others that I have filed away for future use.

Starry Night

Haunted House

Skull

Raven

Candy Corn

Boo

If you're free-handing, then just go for it! Have fun, you're obviously much more talented than I am. 

If you're drawing your own design, I recommend using a piece of paper to create a template. Also keep in mind what you will be able to do with your carving knife.

Tape your template to your pumpkin. Don't be afraid of over-taping the edges! You may need to do some folding so your design is not compromised.

Nice and flat!

Now you'll use your pokey thing to transfer your design to your pumpkin. Working around the design, create a nice dotted line that you'll be able to follow when carving.

It's actually very satisfying

This will more than likely hurt. It sure made my hand cramp up! Power through the pain, it's worth it.

So much pain

Carefully remove your template and wipe off any clinging paper.

Well, not ALL clinging paper. You don't have all night.

And now for the part you've all been waiting for! CARVE IT! Take your knives and CARVE IT! If you have a kit with multiple sizes of knife, use the bigger ones for the wider bits and the smaller one for thin lines. I only had one size, so I just had to be really careful around the tricky thin bits (the legs and feet, mainly). 

AWWWWWW YES!

Take your time! You wouldn't want to slip and totally ruin your awesome design. Especially if there are any fine lines in your design.

Once again, SO satisfying!

Carefully push the cut parts of your design out. If you have a design with multiple "holes" you'll do this during carving rather than all at once.

Slowly.......slowly.....

If you're really careful, you'll be awesome and have a whole cool pumpkin shape.

LIKE THIS ONE!

And you're done! Stick in a lit candle and display wherever it makes you happy. Just don't leave it unattended!

Ta-da!

Now it's time to clean up your mess. If you listened to my rubbish bag trick, this will take you about 10 seconds.

Yeah I know, I missed some paper. Let it go.

Remember those stringy pumpkin bits from before? Now I'm going to tell you what to do with them!

Firstly, you need to separate them from the pumpkin pulp. You know, the gross stringy bits. Preheat your oven to 325F (160C) while you do this.

Yep, you gotta put your hands all up in that.

Once you've got the seeds out, you're going to want to wash them as well as you can. You won't get all of the pulp off of them, but you should be able to get them clean enough without too much effort. 

These are before I cleaned them. I totally spaced on taking a photo of the clean seeds.

Bring a pot of salty water to boil. Add the cleaned seeds and boil for just about 10 minutes.

See? Clean!

Drain your pumpkin seeds and pat them dry. It's fine if they're a little damp, you just want them to be mostly dry-ish. Then spread them on a foil lined pan. There shouldn't be too much overlapping going on. Next drizzle a little of your favourite oil (or in my case, the only oil in the house) and add your seasonings. You can get super creative with this and add all kind of crazy flavouring. I just went with some sea salt.

You're very close to pumpkin seed perfection.

Roast these bad boys for about 10 minutes, then remove and stir. Add a bit more seasoning, if you'd like. Pop them back into the oven for another 10 minutes. About halfway through you'll want to crack one of the shells open to make sure the seed isn't burning. It shouldn't turn brown.

All done!

Bam! You've got yourself some gorgeously roasted pumpkin seeds! I prefer mine less crispy, so if you're looking for more crunch maybe slide them back into the oven for a few minutes. You do not want your shells to get much more brown than mine, as this will cause the inner seeds to burn. If you're looking for the most crisp seeds possible, use sugar pumpkin seeds!

Was that too much work for you? You can always take the lazy (but still adorable) way out and use a product like this. I couldn't find a link for mine, it was a gift from my mom. But there are a lot of other cute options!

How To: Stick the pumpkin with the pointy ends.

I'd love to see pictures of your pumpkins!