Hi Diane,
Thank you so much for your feedback, love your idea of adding cloves and vanilla!
Can I ask the dimensions of your pan? It looks a lot wider than my pan, but a previous commenter said they used a standard American pan (9×5″) and the original recipe was enough.
Despite your loaf being a bit short, the texture looks perfect and I’m happy you enjoyed the recipe!

Yuto

Hi Robert,

Thank you so much for your comment and taking the time to let me know how it turned out! I’m so happy to hear that you and your mum enjoyed the recipe!

Yuto

Hi Lily,
Thank you so much for your kind words and trying the recipe!
Based on what you’ve said, it sounds like the way we cook the kabocha affects the texture of the kabocha purée. I think when I microwave the kabocha with water, the steam gathers at the top of the plastic wrap and then drips back into the kabocha making a looser purée when they’re mashed together. I recommend blitzing the kabocha in the Vitamix as you’re doing, but then add a little bit of water, blitz and repeat until you get a looser consistency.
Other than that, the cake should be moist but not overly gooey so another solution might be simply just baking it for longer and covering it with foil if it starts to burn.
I hope this has helped!
I will try out boiling the kabocha myself and update the post with my findings, thank you for your feedback!

All the best,
Yuto

Thanks so much for this wonderful recipe. I’ve made it twice now and it’s a great way to enjoy the seasonal kabocha up here in Hokkaido. I have had an issue with the batter though- every time I make it, the batter is incredibly thick. This leads to the bread being very gelatinous and gooey in the center. I think my kabocha purée ends up too thick from the start, because in your photos it looks much more liquidy. I was wondering if you have any suggestions. I usually boil the kabocha and remove the skin, using a Vitamix to blend with the egg and sugar mixture.
Thank you again!

Hi Dee,
Thank you for trying out my recipe, I’m so happy you enjoyed it!
Also thank you so much for the feedback, pans in Japan are usually smaller and when I follow American recipes I end up with too much batter, I did some research on the pan size and how to convert it, but I must have overcompensated this time! I’ll update the post, your comment has been very valuable!
I also love your idea of making muffins and using apple sauce, I’ll try that next time!

Notes / Tips:
– I only had a 9×5 loaf pan (I believe the standard for Americans like me), and the recipe says to quadruple the ingredients for that pan size. The original ingredient quantity works just fine for this pan (though it did cook about 10 minutes longer, as expected). I actually don’t think I could have put more than 2-3 cups of batter, considering how much the loaf grew!
– since I quadrupled the recipe, I used the rest of the batter to make equally delicious muffins and got about 24 of them, in 2 standard-sized muffin pans. I upped the temp to 350F for the muffins and they were perfectly cooked at 20 minutes.
– To make it a bit healthier, I substituted half the butter with applesauce and it saved me a ton of calories, and still came out perfectly moist! My favorite health hack for baking 😉
– if you do quadruple the recipe, keep in mind that it’s a bit harder to soften the squash in the microwave and will need significantly more time!

So in total, I quadrupled the recipe and used about 2 cups of batter for the loaf (the normal recipe quantity) and the rest of the 3x batter for the muffins. Everything came out so delicious and I’ll definitely make this again!