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Does anyone know how to make pumpkin pie?

My daughter wants to make pumpkin pie and I'd like to indulge her. Which means I need help. Lots of help.

Thanks.
 
Pie is easy. Pumpkin (or sweet potato), add pumpkin pie spice, buy a pie shell. Pop it into the oven, and, voila.

Wikipedia is your friend here.
 
buy a can of pumpkin at the grocery store. there's a recipe for pie on it that really isn't bad at all. i think it has eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and some spices. pretty much blend everything together, pour it in a pie shell, and bake.

just buy a frozen pie shell if you haven't made pie crust before. or there's a recipe from america's test kitchen that uses vodka and is fairly foolproof.

if you wanna go all out, i do make my pie crust from scratch with a combo of lard&butter

i roast my own sugar pumpkins and puree them rather than using the canned stuff too. to be honest though, it's not that much better than the canned stuff. there's definitely a nicer texture and a more delicate flavor, but most people wouldn't know the difference unless i told them.
 
9-inch deep pie crust

15-ounce can pumpkin puree

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

1 egg yolk

1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. If using a homemade or unformed pie crust, arrange it in a pie pan and crimp the edges.

Place a sheet of parchment paper inside the pie crust, then fill it with enough dry beans, uncooked rice or pie weights to come nearly to the top of the pie. Bake for 15 minutes, then set aside to cool slightly. Reduce the oven to 350 F.

While the crust is baking, in a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Heat for 7 minutes, stirring often.

Transfer the pumpkin mixture to a blender or food processor. Puree for about 10seconds. One at a time, add the eggs and egg yolk, pulsing the blender or processor briefly between each.

With the blender or processor running, slowly pour in the cream and puree until well mixed, about another 10 seconds.

Discard the beans and parchment paper from the pie crust. Slowly pour the filling into the pie crust, then bake for 1 hour, or until the edges are puffed and the center is set and jiggles only slightly.

Cool completely on a rack before cutting.

PIE CRUST

Start to finish:

Makes 2 pie crusts

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

1/2 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces

1/4 cup cold vodka

1/4 cup cold water

To make the crust, in a food processor, combine 11?2 cups of flour, the salt and sugar. Pulse several times to mix.

Add the butter and shortening and process until the dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds. The dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour.

Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula and redistribute it evenly around the processor blade. Add the remaining flour and pulse 4 to 6 times, or until the flour is evenly distributed through the dough.

Transfer the dough to a medium bowl, then sprinkle the vodka and water over it. Using the rubber spatula, mix the dough and liquid with a folding motion, pressing down on the dough until it is slightly tacky and sticks together.

Divide the dough into 2 even balls, then flatten each into a 4-inch disk. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes, and up to 2 days.

When the dough has chilled, on a well floured counter roll out each round to a roughly 12-inch circle. Transfer the dough to a pie pan, crimping any excess over the edge.
 
A decent pie crust from scratch takes some practice to get right, I'd start with a pre-made one from the grocery store to make it easy on yourself. You can use canned pumpkin and the recipe on the can, or you can start with a pie pumpkin - easier to do than it sounds! They sell small sweet pumpkins now specifically for pies, with a dense flesh. I find that the best way to get a concentrated flavor is to cut one in half, scoop out the seeds and place the two halves, cut sides down, on a lightly oiled sheet of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet. Bake them in the oven at 375 degrees until you can easily pierce them with a knife. Take them out and cool them enough to handle, then peel off the skin and throw them into a food processor and blend them smooth. You only need 2 cups of the pumpkin puree for one pie, the rest can be measured into 2 cup portions and frozen for later.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Beat 3 eggs well and then add 2 cups of the pumpkin, a cup of brown sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. cloves, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg (or whatever combination of spices you like), and from 1 to 1 1/2 cups of evaporated milk or "half and half" coffee cream. Pour the filling into the pie shell and bake it for 15 minutes then turn down the heat to 325 and bake it another 30 minutes or the filling is "set". You can test it with a knife blade: slip the knife into the pie about halfway to the center - if it comes out clean, you can take the pie out of the oven (it will continue to firm up as it cools). If it comes out coated with filling, leave it in another five minutes and test again.

Thank you for the post. I have been wanting to try to make one from scratch for a while now.
 
My daughter wants to make pumpkin pie and I'd like to indulge her. Which means I need help. Lots of help.

Thanks.

OK buy one large can of Libby's pumpkin..... not pumpkin pie mix.... there are directions on the back of the can. follow it to the letter and you will have 2 great pies :thumbup:

Be sure to read the directions and list of ingredients before you leave the store so you can buy anything that is listed on the can.
 
When my wife moved from the USA to here she had to work out how to make it from scratch.

For real scratch.

From pumpkins.

It took her quite a while to get the spice mix right. She got some advice from her grandmother who made it as a girl before they invented tinned pie filling.

If you want to go old school pm me and I will get the recipe.
 
It's very good without the crust, just call it pumpkin custard, and then you can pretend it's low calorie. It's excellent for breakfast.
 
If you are thinking on buying an actual pumpkin make sure it's on the smaller scale, the larger ones are very stringy.
 
The Fanny Farmer cook book. Have her make a pumpkin pie and a sweet potato pie. Have a side by side comparison. Both are very fine, but as a son of the south my vote always goes to sweet 'tater pie.:thumbup1:
 
Fresh pumpkin makes wonderful pie, but the trick is to bake it rather than boil it...you want to drain off as much liquid as possible, not add more. And get a "pie pumpkin" variety rather than one grown for use as a Halloween decoration.

+1. I am not a fan of canned pumpkin but we never use a traditional Halloween pumpkin. We get what I call a "cheese" pumpkin which is short and wide and looks like a wheel of cheese. If you have any left after making the pie you can freeze it and make muffins or another pie later on.
 
I took James1971 up on his offer and PMed him for his recipe. All I can say is that I am happy I took the two minutes to send him a PM.

I used his recipe. He was kind enough to allow me to post it, so here it is:

Crust first.

2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup + 2 Tbsp Crisco (can't get it here, so we use butter instead)

Mix above together, then ad 1/3 cup very cold water. Knead lightly, then form into one ball. 1/2 of the dough ball will make 1 pie crust (this crust is good for making apple or cherry pies as well - the other half makes the top crust). Roll out onto floured board into a thin layer (too thick will cause the base to be gooey and uneven) grease and flour the pan, and place crust into pie pan.

Now for the filling...

1 cup boiled, mashed pumpkin (japanese blue is best, but butternut is ok too)
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ginger (freshly grated is better, but dried is perfectly fine)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves

Preheat oven to 425. Boil pumkin until soft, drain then mash. Return mashed pumpkin to pan and cook off any extra liquid, then firmly pack into 1 cup. Combine all ingredients and blend until smooth. Pour mix into pie base, then place in oven at 425 for approximately 15-20 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 for approximately 40-50 minutes (until top begins to brown slightly and a skewer comes out of the middle of the pie clean). Take pie out of oven and place on rack to cool for 2 hours, then refrigerate until served.


I did not use his crust, though. I used the one I posted here. I just love that crust, so I figured I would put it to the test. Also, I did not boil the pumpkin. I cooked it in the microwave on high for 30 minutes. I despise cooking anything in the microwave, but I heard the pumpkin turns out better that way, so I tried it. I also tripled the filling to make up for my tart recipe being larger. The pie turned out beautiful. I will never go back to canned goo (yes, pun intended :lol:) again.
 
I use canned pumpkin and cook it per Cook's Illustrated. I prefer it that way over to doing nothing to the canned stuff. I don't think there is much difference to canned versus fresh in this case. IMHO and all that.
 
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