#4 Pumpkin
When it comes to baking, you generally want fresh ingredients. Take key lime pie, you wouldn’t dream of making a delicious pie using bottled lime juice, same with making a cherry pie: using the canned or preserved fruits is just going to ruin your experience. Many that haven’t yet had experience with baking would think that for pumpkin pie it would be the same thing: fresh pumpkin, great pie, no? Unfortunately for them, not really.
Fresh pumpkin is actually packed with too much water, which can in turn ruin your filling and definitely ruin your crust when you bake it. Not to mention that if you plan to substitute it in a recipe that calls for canned pumpkin, you would ruin the dish as the proportions are made with the canned food in mind.
Moreover, using canned pumpkin will result in a smoother texture and a better pumpkin flavor than the ones that use the fresh pumpkin in their filling. Keep the fresh variety for a hearty stew or puree it for an amazing soup, but far away from baking.
