You will be amazed at the taste difference when you use real fresh pumpkin instead of canned in recipes. Your pies and baked goods will also be a more vibrant orange color. Grow or buy one of the many smaller varieties intended for baking. (see tips) Do not bake your hybridized jack o’ lantern pumpkin, because you will be disappointed by its dry stringy flesh and bland taste.
As long as you are making a pumpkin pie from scratch, you might as well make two! That’s my philosophy, anyway. The homemade crust can be time consuming, so often I skip it completely and just bake the filling in an oiled pie dish, and it’s like eating pumpkin custard. Using fresh baked pumpkin makes a big difference in this recipe yielding a sweeter and deeper orange pie.
Use column 1 Use column 2
For 2 shallow 9” pies For 2 deep-dish 9” Pies
2 C. 3 C. unbleached flour (or half whole wheat and half white)
½ t. ¾ t. salt
2/3 C. 1 C. cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 C. ½ C. +1Tb. ice water
3 lg. 4 lg. organic eggs
1 C. 1 ¼ C. maple syrup (or sugar, or honey, or a combination)
4 C. 5 C. fresh cooked pumpkin
2 t. 2 ½ t. ground cinnamon
1 t. 1 ¼ t. ground ginger
½ t. ¾ t. ground allspice or cloves
¼ t. 1/3 t. salt
1 ½ C. 2 C. evaporated milk or other milk (soy, coconut, cow)
2 C. 2 C. heavy whipping cream
5 Tb. 5 Tb. powdered sugar (or ¼ C. agave or honey)
1 t. 1 t. vanilla extract
Crust = Place the flour and salt in a bowl and whisk together. With clean hands, add the butter and quickly work it into the flour until the butter pieces are small and the mixture look like a fine textured crumb. Drizzle in the ice water while working it in with a fork. Use your hands to form a cohesive ball. Cut in half. Roll out one half at a time on a floured cutting board to a thickness of 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch. Transfer to a pie dish. Make sure it is sitting evenly against the pie plate. Cut off any excess dough hanging further than 1 inch off the edge of the crust. Tuck under and crimp the edges.
Filling = Place in the order listed into a large blender, everything but the milk. Blend well until totally smooth. While running, slowly add the milk. You might not be able to fit it all in the blender, in which case just transfer to a bowl and whisk in the rest of the milk. Pour into a premade crust, not totally full (about ½ inch down from the crimped edges.
Cream = In a cold bowl, whip the cream with a whisk, immersion blender, electric beater, or mixer with the whisk attachment. As it begins to thicken, add the sugar and vanilla. Continue whipping until stiff but still soft. Careful to not over mix and turn it into butter! This can easily happen with immersion blenders.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 40-50 minutes more or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Shallow pies will take the 40 minutes and deep pies might take 45-50 minutes.)(For no-crust pumpkin pie, bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.)
