How To Carve A Perfect Pumpkin
How To Carve The Perfect Pumpkin
How to select and carve the perfect pumpkin for a decorative scary, fun filled Halloween.
This ancient old tradition sitting on your doorstep,personalized and skillfully carved by you and your family. Invite some friends over for pre-pumpkin carving and enjoy the laughter as you create and learn how to carve a pumpkin for Halloween
How To Carve A Pumpkin For Halloween Tools
How To Carve A Pumpkin For Halloween
- Draw a circle around the pumpkin stem . This will be the lid.
- Doesn't have to be a perfect circle ,maybe even a triangle or star. Cut a small notch in the circle so the lids fits well when replaced. Another successful method is to cut from the bottom,some find it easier to lift the whole pumpkin up when lighting candle.
- Carefully begin cutting along your line using your boning knife. Its a good idea to angle your knife slightly to stop the lid from falling inside.
- Once lid is removed, cut and scrape any pulp away and discard.
- Now also remove pulp (pumpkin flesh) from inside, pumpkin for Halloween always means I have lots of pumpkin seeds to roast later ,healthy crunchy and fantastic for salads. Saving the pumpkin flesh pulp, and freezing, will make great pumpkin dippers or muffins or delicious soup later (see link further down) for Easy Pumpkin Soup <<or click here.
- How To Carve A Pumpkin For Halloween will look great the more flesh you scrape out as the light will shine even brighter!
- Visualize where your candle will stand and make that area nice n flat (by scraping) on the bottom
- Draw you Jack-O-Lantern on the front of your pumpkin, using simple clear lines.
- Use a paring knife, to cut along your design slowly and carefully.
How To Choose The Best Pumpkin For Carving
Selection Process:
Choose pumpkins that have an even orange colour, the brighter the better. Look out for bruises,nicks or discoloration ,definitely these will not make a great looking Jack-O-Lantern!
Also make sure when choosing your pumpkin to check its not ripe or over-ripe ( if its feel slightly soft or squishy ) leave him on the farm.
How To Carve Pumpkin For Halloween
- Uniform bright orange colour
- No bruises ,nicks, warty bits
- Not ripe or soft
Once you have made your selection ,preparing how to carve a pumpkin for Halloween is just around the corner.
Never carry your pumpkin by the stem!
Since this becomes your handle on the top of the lighted lantern. If however ,you discover later you have the almost perfect pumpkin with no stem , don't worry , just use toothpicks. Of course carve out the bottom now ,instead of the top ,and sit your pumpkin over top of the candle, instead of placing the candle from the top.
Patterns For Your Pumpkin Halloween
Either design them yourself,keeping the lines simple ( since these will be easier to carve) or download some patterns off the Internet. The library also has some excellant ideas and easy enough to photocopy there , bring home and adapt.
How to Carve Pumpkin Tools
- How To Make Easy Pumpkin Soup
Leftover pumpkin flesh? This is a very easy classic Pumpkin Soup Recipe, and delicious.Convert it easily to Thai Cream Pumpkin soup as well. Extra pumpkin puree can be frozen and used later for bread , easy pumpkin muffins,cakes. Natural and... - Halloween Ancient Customs
where did the custom of Halloween come from?. Once upon a time the Celts who lived over 2,000 years ago in a place we know as Ireland celebrated their new year on November 1st. Celtic Festival Of Samhain (Samhain (Scots Gaelic: Samhuinn) literally...
Comments
Hi, Eagle! GREAT hub! Great topic! Wonderful read too. Very timely in hit's presentation. Loved every word. I voted up and all across. You are a great talent and I am now a fan. Kenneth Avery from a small, rural town in northwest Alabama called Hamilton. A town that reminds you of Mayberry, where Andy and Barney worked. You know, the Andy Griffith Show.
luv it! October November are my favorite time of the year... I live in Connecticut and we get the full effects of Fall! I love carving pumpkins with my children every year... it's one of my favorite times!!! especially baking the pumpkin seeds after, then lighting the candles in the pumpkins to see how good of a job we did carving! thank you for the tips!
That is so cool EK!!!!
Hey Eaglekiwi, hope you had a nice Halloween. It's not as big here in Australia as it is in your neck of the woods though, but still kids do roam around to collect all the goodies.
Seems like carving pumpkins will cause too much pain in the palm area, but hope to try it someday.
thnaks for sharing useful tips
I love this part of Halloween. I've carved Crosses with Bible verses. I've carved pictures and intricate faces. I use the tiny saws and take forever sawing away at it an piercing tiny holes. I do an I love you one for my wife and a scary one for Halloween. I used to do one for the kids when they were little. They used to think it was cool but only when I was done. It was always so boring until then. Good hub, good memories. love ya.
Hey Eaglekiwi, I've made jack o' lanterns before, and wished I had your advice. Good hub for HubMob!
I have never developed a taste for pumpkin seeds, so jiberish may have mine.. but she has to come get them!
Great Idea!...I love pumpkin seeds baked with salt, yum!
How many nicks and cuts am I allowed per pumpkin-carving? I average 2 is that too many? I hate the slimy seeds and goo from the inside, but what fun!! Good hub Eagle!
I like the ice-cream scoop idea too! I also like how you warned us to not carry the pumpkin by the stem as it can break, including employing the use of toothpicks. Lots of people, to be on the safe side, use a small votive candle or a electrical latern (battery powered) to prevent accidents...Speaking of which, I had a pumpkin thrown at my head when I was a kid, but maybe that's to be further explained in another hub :D
Thank you, EagleKiwi!
Messy and fun :D - lots of newspaper is always a good thing LOL. I agree with Pete - the ice cream scoop is a great idea,
I like the ice cream scoop idea.
It sounds like a lot of work but fun to do project. I always wanted a real pumpkin lantern, I might give it a try this year. Next week we have a pumpkin festival near my town so it would be perfect for choosing a couple of pumpkins to carve.
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