I made pumpkin pie for the first time!

For those of you living in the States and Mexico, this may seem a bit odd – but I think it is a very American thing to use pumpkin in a desert or sweet format. As I am an avid reader of food blogs, since October every blog I visited had at least ONE pumpkin recipe! So I decided that it was high time that I too bake with this fantastic fruit!

I decided that I would go with the all time classic – pumpkin pie, and what better reference to have than the Joy of Cooking by your side, or so I thought. In actual fact, although I do love the cook book and getting ideas from it, I find actually using it a real pain in the back-side as you are constantly flipping from one recipe to the other in order to complete the original recipe that you
are interested in.

Anyway back to the recipe – it turned out surprisingly well. I say ‘surprisingly’ because as ‘C’ and I were making it, I had just lost the love and the interest. ‘C’ was busy pureeing the pumpkins which we had roasted, and I was making the crust which just seemed unnecessarily complex, and I was getting increasingly irritated at the book – but it all came together really well!  ‘C’ even brought it in with him to work and all his colleagues apparently liked it..so that is a good sign.

Although I really enjoyed this pie – I couldn’t help but think this would make a much better crumble instead, I think I am going to try that next…

Here is the recipe for pumpkin pie, I am just including the filling part of the pie, as I think the pie dough I made form Joy was just too difficult. In the future I would use my simple pie dough recipe instead which you can find here.

Pumpkin Pie – Joy of Cooking

If you can’t get hold of canned pumpkin puree, here is how to make it: You will need 2-3kg of pumpkin to make 4 cups of puree (enough for 2 pies).

Wash and split the pumpkins into quarters with a cleaver or heavy knife. Cut out the stem, scrape out the stringy pulp, and seeds and hack into small pieces.

Place the pumpkin rind side down in an oiled roasting pan and cover tightly with aluminium foil. Bake at 160C until very soft, about 1.5 hours.

Scrape the flesh free of the rind and puree in a food processor.

Ingredients

• 2-3 large eggs
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 1.5 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• ¼ tsp ground cloves or allspice
• ½ tsp salt

Method

Make a simple pie dough – see ingredient here

Whisk thoroughly in a large bowl 2 to 3 eggs. Note: Use 3 eggs for a soft custardy filling, 2 for a firmer pie with a pronounced pumpkin flavour.

Then whisk in the bowl the remaining ingredients and whisk thoroughly.

Pour the pumpkin mixture into the curst and bake 35 to 45 minutes or until firm. (it took us almost an hour..but I blame that on the altitude)

Serve warm with whipped cream…!