There are several ways you can carve your Halloween pumpkin this year. Learning what they are will ensure that your experience is smooth and not a hack job of pumpkin insides! Let’s take a look:
- Start with choosing the right pumpkin. You need to have a fresh, firm pumpkin with no bruises and a flat base so that it stays steady while you are using sharp instruments to carve. Try to avoid the pumpkins that have bruising, as they will be too soft to carve correctly.
- Always begin your carving session from the bottom of the pumpkin. This may sound like a backward way to do it, but it’s going to stop your pumpkin sides from caving in when you do that. If you want to cut from the top, then make sure that you cut the pumpkin’s lid at a slight angle. When you do this, it will sit nicely and not just drop inside the pumpkin.
- Scoop every bit of pulp and seeds that you can. The best trick for this is to put on a pair of gloves – food grade ones – and just dig in with your hands. An ice cream scoop can be used to pull the flesh from the sides, but your hands can gather the rest without much trouble! The inner walls should be just over an inch in thickness. This will enable you to carve out the outer shell much more quickly!
- It can help you to have a frame of reference for your design. If you draw out what you want onto paper first, you can measure your design against your pumpkin. You can even tape it to the front of the pumpkin and use a fork to pierce holes along the lines to copy the design to the pumpkin’s shell. Of course, you can get a full pumpkin carving kit, but this is just a more fun way!
- Placing the pumpkin on a table while you stand above it and carve may make it a much easier experience. It’s much easier to see what you’re doing when the pumpkin’s face is looking up at you. If you want to go fully professional with this, get an X-Acto knife for carving. You can then try out different designs and make your pumpkin far more intricate.
- Start your whole carving session by making rough cuts on the pumpkin. You can get the bigger edges out of the way and then later, go back and tidy them up with the right knife.
- When you are finished carving, keep your pumpkin fresh by adding petroleum jelly to the cut edges to seal in the moisture. If your pumpkin shrivels up, you can soak it in cold water for up to eight hours to make it fresh once more. Sprinkle in some cinnamon, and the whole pumpkin will smell like pie!
