This pie uses fresh pumpkin, not canned. The recipe here is just for the filling, and fills about two standard pies or 1 1/2 extra-large ones. For the crust I used a ball of pastry dough that had been in the freezer for about three months; when I find the recipe for it I'll post it here too (it's quite good!). This would probably be great with the crust recipe Heather posted for her zucchini quiche, too.
Filling:
2 sugar pie pumpkins
1/2c heavy cream
1 1/2c milk
~3/4c brown sugar
4-5 eggs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger (fresh would be incredible)
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
(the spices are to taste - use what you like, as much as you like, add what you like, subtract what you don't)
Cut the pumpkins in half and scoop out the seeds and strings, and save the seeds if you want to roast them or dry them for planting. Oil the cut edges and place them on a baking sheet. Roast at 350*F for about 45-50 minutes, or until the flesh pierces easily w/ a fork. Wait for them to cool to just warm, then scoop out the flesh and discard the skins. I added the milk to the pulp and blended in small batches to get a puree (large batches just jam up the blender, the milk helps some with this). At this point I had a little under 4 cups of pumpkin puree - nearly enough for 2 pies, but I chose to make one large pie (the dish is 10 or 11 inches) and another dish of just pumpkin custard (no crust). Then you're ready to add the other ingredients (I used 5 eggs), mix up, pour into a pre-baked pie shell, and bake at 425*F for 20 minutes, then 375*F for another 20-30 minutes. Mine needed nearly 60 minutes of baking overall. It might be a good idea to cover the crust with foil for the second half, as mine got a little almost-burnt.
The results:
This is an excellent pie. The texture is smooth but more interesting than pie made from canned pumpkin, and it tastes more complex without being too squash-y. This amount of sugar was sort of my upper limit - it was a little sweeter than it needed to be, but not too sweet. I'd like to see how this turns out with honey used instead of brown sugar.
Question for crust pre-bakers:
Does anyone have a good method of keeping their pie crust flat while pre-baking? I've tried using parchment paper weighted with beans, rice, etc, and this always results in greasy, buttery crust bottom. Ideas?
3 comments:
Julia Child has a complicated set of instructions for prebaked tart shells which I use with pretty good results -- I'll look it up and post it. Basically you bake your crust partially with buttered foil and dry beans on top to keep it flat, then take the foil/beans off and prick the crust, put the foil/beans back on and bake some more, and finally take the foil/beans off a final time and bake the crust a little bit more.
wow.
this recipe sounds pretty phenomenal :) i wish i had some helpful hints for ya, but i'm too busy drooling about future pies....
miss you, katrina.
Irene - that sounds complicated indeed! I'm looking forward to seeing if it works. I think I also need to increase the size of my crust recipe to accommodate my extra-large pie pan - if the crust shrinks, I end up with open-faced pie sandwich.
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