Brûlée

Brûlée is Michael Mazourek's answer to the two complaints growers had about Honeynut, the mini butternut his Cornell programme made famous: it comes in earlier and it stores longer. Bred at Cornell's Vegetable Breeding Institute and released as an open-pollinated variety under plant variety protection, it sets squat, stout, personal-sized fruit of roughly half a pound to a pound in ordinary butternut tan — no green-to-honey ripening transition here. High Mowing lists it at 90 to 95 days and Nature & Nurture at 93, early enough to finish reliably in short northern seasons where Honeynut can run out of runway. High Mowing describes the flavour as rich and savoury with restrained rather than candied sweetness; Nature & Nurture calls it sweet and creamy. The vines are vigorous and the crop is described as prolific and uniform, which matters when the fruit is sold by the piece.