Catherine Dillon, who posts as @cat.damian, opens her TikTok with a dare: “This is your sign to bake your next fall soup directly in a pumpkin.” Her caption explains where the idea came from. She says she first saw the recipe shared by another creator, who pulled it from a 1750s Menorcan cookbook called the Caules Manuscript, and that it “describes a no water, no pot soup baked directly in a pumpkin.” The age and source of the book are her caption’s claims, not something the video documents.
In the video she says she saw the recipe, “ran to the grocery store” and wrote her own variation in the description. Over about two and a half minutes she builds the soup inside the pumpkin, bakes it and eats it, narrating as she goes.
The build starts with a large pumpkin with its lid cut off and the inside cleaned out. She layers the bottom with cabbage, parsnips, pearl onions and mushrooms, then checks the height: “It looks like we’re at a perfect height.” The seasonings go next, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder and chicken bouillon, and she explains why she ties fresh rosemary, sage, thyme and oregano into a bundle with twine: “That way they’re easy to fish out when the soup is ready.” The Cornish hen she picked for its size goes in with shallot, garlic and carrot on top, and she arranges corn around the sides. Her caption lists the full variation: a large pumpkin, a hen, two parsnips, a quarter of a green cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, two large carrots, an ear of corn, red pearl onions, a shallot, four cloves of garlic and the herbs.
The rule that makes it unusual is the one she repeats: “this recipe doesn’t call for any water. As everything cooks down, it’s going to release its own juices and turn into a delicious caldo.” She puts the lid back on and covers the outside with lard. She says she could also use Crisco or butter, “but I’m going to keep the traditional recipe that I saw online.” The pumpkin goes into an oven safe pie dish and bakes at 360 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours, which sits at the short end of her caption’s range of three to three and a half hours.
The reveal is the best part of the video. The skin has turned a deep, glossy brown, and she says, “Don’t judge my dirty oven. I’m a real person.” She lifts the lid and says: “Oh, hold on. Plan B.” Inside, the pumpkin is full of pale broth with orange carrots and corn at the surface. “We added no water and it created all of this delicious broth,” she says. She tastes it hot, notes that the “pumpkin flavor comes through” and calls it “a true pumpkin soup.” Scraping some soft pumpkin flesh into her bowl, she jokes that the dish is “like Halloween in a bowl.”
Her verdict comes with specifics. She likes that “the vegetables aren’t cooked too much,” so each one stays “at the exact doneness that it should be.” She had never cooked parsnips before and finds them “really good.” The cabbage “still has crunch,” and “the chicken is falling off the bone.” Her closing line is a rating: “I’m rating this a 10 out of 10.”
Outside guidance explains two things worth knowing before you try it. First, the pumpkin. The University of Illinois Extension says processing pumpkins, sometimes sold as pie or sweet pumpkins, are “more desirable for baking or cooking,” and recommends ones of roughly 4 to 8 pounds that feel heavy for their size. Carving pumpkins can be baked, it says, but they “generally have a bland taste, tend to be watery, and often have a very stringy texture.” Her video does not say which kind she used, and its pumpkin guidance suggests that choosing the type matters for a recipe that depends on the flesh.
Second, the hen. A recipe with no added liquid and a long bake still has to get the bird to a safe temperature, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service says whole chicken should reach 165 degrees Fahrenheit as measured with a food thermometer, checked at the innermost part of the thigh and wing and the thickest part of the breast. Its chicken guidance adds that cooked chicken leftovers keep three to four days in a refrigerator at 40 degrees or below. Her clip shows the meat falling off the bone but does not show a thermometer, so a probe through the pumpkin wall is the step to add if you copy her method.
For a pumpkin soup of your own, her sequence is worth keeping: vegetables that hold their shape on the bottom, seasonings and herbs bundled for easy removal, a hen that fits, a snug lid and a coat of fat on the skin. Plan on three hours or more, set the pumpkin in an oven safe dish as she does, and expect to serve the soup from the pumpkin with a big spoon.
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