Bakking a great pumpkin pie

[pellaz]

Buy a baking pumpkin, smaller than expected, the large ones are stringy.
remove stem, pierce a few times and place on a cookie sheet, 350deg F for 1.5 hours, cool.

combine, beat together:
3eggs, 1cup sugar, 1cup pumpkin pulp, 1/2cup milk, 1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/4teaspoon of each; salt, coves, allspice and ginger

use a pre made pie shell bake 400F for 15min and 350F for 45min

[wakeboarder]

i have a couple of pumpkins sitting outside. might just try it...

[Almac]

Never had pumpkin pie.....

[Genersis]

I tried making pumpkin pie this year.
Think i got the wrong kind of pumpkin/undercooked/overcooked it.
It basically tasted like...potato purée in a pie base...or close to it.
Very bland.
The custard tart i made the next day was much more satisfying.:biggrin:

[Bowyn Aerrow]

My recipe-calls for three field pumpkin seeds, a hill of soil and several months of growing then pick the pumpkin, let it cure a few days in the field, bring it in cut into quarters and steam until the meat it tender enough to be pulled from the skin.

An alternative to this is to either oven roast the pumpkin in an inch of water or to BBQ the pumpkin slices. field pumpkins are small and spherical - around 5 pounds each, thick 'shells' and typically a brownish orange color. Jack O'Lanterns are typically brighter orange and far larger with thinner shells - they lack taste having been bred for carving and lighting.

Other winter squashes can be used such as acorn squash and butternut squash. It is actually basically the same recipe for sweet potato pie as well.


1 pie recipe:

3 eggs (large)
2 cup pumpkin puree
1 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
4 tablespoons heavy cream
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp ground ginger

1 unbaked 9 inch pie shell.

Beat eggs until frothy, add cream and condensed milk, blend until well blended. Add the rest of the ingredients, pour into a pumpkin shell.

Bake at 350°F (176°C -Gas Mark 4) for about an hour and 15 minutes - really until you can stick a clean butter knife in at the center and it comes back clean. My stove takes about 1 hour 26 minutes for a pie.

I make my own pie shell/crust:

2 pie shell
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup cold butter, cut in small pieces
1/4 cup shortening
6 to 8 tablespoons ice cold water

Chill the butter, shortening and water. You want it hard.

Sift together flour, salt and sugar. Then mix with a fork.

Then use a pastry knife/fork to chop your butter and shortening into the flour mixture until you get pea sized and smaller 'crumbs'.

Add about 5 tablespoons of cold water, mixing with a fork until it lumps together, add one tablespoon at a time, mixing it in well. You most likely will use about 7 tablespoons of water to get the right dough consistency.

For spiced pies (pumpkin, squash, sweet potato) I roll out the dough sprinkling with cinnamon sugar (dusting it actually) and roll one more time to embed the cinnamon and sugar. While I will typically make two pies at a time, I usually a tad bit more crust left over to roll out leaves or some other shapes to float on top of the pies... thus my measurements are slightly increased - more like a few handfuls of flour, a guesstimated measure of oil a rounded tsp of salt so I end up with something like 2.5 pie shells.

If you are only doing one pie, then roll out the rest of the pie dough, cut into strips, lay on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with with cinnamon sugar and bake on the bottom shelf of the oven for oh about 15-20 minutes - until lightly browned edges appear. move to a rake to cool. Its a way to use up the pie dough, my great-grandmother called it 'river bread' a nice treat sort of like a cookie.

[pellaz]