Everything Pumpkin

Based in Nairobi, Everything Pumpkin is a food company dedicated to offering an exciting culinary experience. We do this through a range of products made from fresh, locally sourced pumpkins. We have a delectable pastry selection with everything from cinnamon rolls to gluten-free loaves, pumpkin scones, and pumpkin pies. We also feature savoury products such as our signature pumpkin curry dip, which is a fan favourite.

Photo by Everything Pumpkin

Everything Pumpkin started a year ago after a big pumfavouritepkin harvest. Our test kitchen lead comes from a farm in Kitale and her dad generously distributed the pumpkins to friends and family. We didn’t want any pumpkins to go bad and thought - why not have a pumpkin-themed party and game-night to use up the pumpkins? We invited a few friends and made pumpkin soup, cocktails, and cookies, which were all a hit! The next morning, we woke up giddy and thought - Pumpkin Everything? Everything Pumpkin! Let’s play!

WHY PUMPKIN?

Why not Pumpkin?! There is a reason we feed even children pumpkins! They are highly nutritious but are an often-overlooked super fruit. Pumpkins are packed with vitamins, (including beta carotene that your body needs to manufacture Vitamin A), potassium (linked to proper heart and muscle function), and antioxidants (which help to bolster the immune system). Furthermore, the high-fibre flesh from pumpkins can keep your belly full while keeping calories low.

Photo by Everything Pumpkin

Unfortunately, many people growing up in Kenya have unpleasant (often childhood) experiences with pumpkins. They were either cooked poorly and/or the pumpkins that were used were watery with an unforgivably flat flavor or stringy texture. If you were brought up in the west, perhaps pumpkins evoke happy memories of fall and the seasonal holidays associated with that - Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Otherwise, you’re probably a local who cannot bear the thought of eating pumpkins but will happily pass on the ritual pumpkin feedings to your children.

Regardless of your background and history with pumpkins, we are confident that you can enjoy a trauma-free pumpkin culinary experience with Everything Pumpkin! The first step is getting the right kinds of pumpkin - it’s the base for most of our recipes, after all. We’ve found that the best cooking pumpkins are smaller, dense for their size, and will have bits of both green and orange/yellow on the outside. We’ve written more about ‘how to find your perfect pumpkin’ on our blog and you can find more tips there.

Pumpkins will either get watery or acquire an unpleasant rubbery texture if over-cooked. You want to boil them in a pot filled quarter to halfway with water just until a fork can easily go through the flesh. This can take up to 40mins depending on the size of your pot. Be sure to drain the water shortly thereafter (or save it for vegetable stock!) We also typically boil our pumpkins with the skin on - it’s much easier to peel them after boiling than when they are raw. Fun fact though - pumpkin peels are totally edible!

We would equate our pumpkin journey to the scene in Cinderella where the fairy godmother waves her magic wand and this forgotten fruit magically becomes a carriage. That kind of magic is possible with the right team and a little bit of imagination! At the start, we had a bunch of really quirky people on the founding team who love to create – they both fueled and fed off that initial excitement around pumpkins. For instance, we had a design-thinking member who led our business development and is responsible for many of the beautiful graphics you see on our website. We also had an incredibly talented photographer who is an avid foodie and travel junkie - she added a lot of creative depth to our palette both food and content-wise. When it came to creating, nothing was off limits. We maintained a child-like sense of wonder and had fun even though running a business is hard work!

Photo by Everything Pumpkin

Our test kitchen lead has a background in biochemistry and she equates baking to being in a lab - only she can eat what she makes. Baking is a precise science that also gives room for artistic expression – a beautiful intersection of science, art and food. And who doesn’t melt at the smell of freshly baked goods? The team at Modernist Cuisine explains these Maillard reactions beautifully: “These reactions—in which sugars combine with amino acids to form tasty golden and umber complexes— throw off lots of volatile aromatic compounds that float through the kitchen air and into your nostrils.” We live for those moments when we bake.

We currently source our pumpkins from local farmers, and send our seeds back to them for quality control. This way, we propagate only the best pumpkins. Our ultimate goal is to work with local farmers to up pumpkin production and consumption in the local market. Pumpkins can grow year round in Kenya, and they can keep for up to 6 months under the right conditions. With these factors, food insecurity could be a thing of the past.

Photo by Everything Pumpkin

We also want to change the local perception of pumpkins. People’s first reaction to Everything Pumpkin is often surprise or apprehension. However, like one of our returning customers likes to say, “It’s not what you expect!” Our goods are truly delicious and we constantly work to develop and improve our recipes. We want to be the one-stop-shop for some of the best-baked goods and food products in Nairobi – all of course with a touch of pumpkin!