PORTLAND – It’s no surprise that master chefs and award-winning cookbook authors almost always prefer fresh ingredients to anything canned, frozen or otherwise processed.

But that precept fails when it comes to pumpkin and the many wonderful pies, breads and other goodies the orange squash spawns – even now, when its popularity and freshness peak.

“After trying a couple of times to make pies with “from scratch” pumpkin puree (cutting, roasting, scraping, mashing), I concluded that it’s really not worth the trouble. In fact, canned pumpkin is superior in some ways because the puree has been cooked down to a properly thick consistency,” James Beard Award-winning cookbook author Brooke Dojny wrote in her book, “Dishing up Maine.”

“Just be sure not to buy presweetened and spiced pumpkin-pie filling,” she cautioned.

Canned pumpkin provides the heavy texture and reliable consistency so essential to good baking better than fresh, Dojny said. “The taste isn’t very different at all from the canned.”

The former prep chef for Martha Stewart said her preference for canned pumpkin runs counter to her usual approach to cooking.

“When the fresh is available, it’s usually the better choice,” she said, admitting she was hard pressed to think of an ingredient other than pumpkin where that was not the case.

The exception is for pumpkin baked or roasted as a vegetable, for which Dojny said fresh is best, as with any other type of squash.

When selecting fresh pumpkins for eating, Dojny suggested so-called sugar pumpkins. They are much smaller, darker in color and have a rounder shape than the large Halloween pumpkins, which tend to be watery and make poor pies and cakes.

Dojny’s recipe for bourbon pumpkin pie follows a classic formula. A small slug of bourbon (or rum) is added for interest, but she says the pie is fine without spirits.