Easy pumpkin pie recipe
with fresh pumpkin.
I swear this tastes better than most store bought pies.
Purple text is my notes!
It's difficult to get pastry sheets at a store where I live.
So I make my own crusts.
Havent found one that I perfectly like just yet. The rest of the pie I like perfectly, just not the crust.
Here's one that I am using from Inspired Taste that has held up well but is pretty hard to make by hand. (Cold butter is very hard and doesn't want to be chopped. 😢) Probably very easy using a food processor!
Ingredients
2 ½ cups (325g) all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt or 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon sugar, optional (I prefer without for pumpkin pie, it makes the pastry less flavorful in my opinion)
1 cup (230g) very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (honestly smaller is better if you are doing it by hand. Cold butter does not want to break up.)
6 to 8 tablespoons ice water, or more as needed
Recipe
Combine the first portion of flour and butter: In a medium bowl, add 1 ½ cups of flour, salt, and sugar. Whisk to combine.
Scatter the cold butter cubes over the flour, then briefly mix with a fork or spatula to coat the butter. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour until the mixture has a coarse, mealy texture, similar to breadcrumbs. This should
take about 1 to 2 minutes. (This is a lie. It takes more than 10 minutes. Butter keeps sticking to each other and refuses to integrate into the flour. Maybe if you are a pastry chef you can do it that quickly.)
Add the remaining flour: Scatter the remaining 1 cup of flour over the butter and flour mixture. Continue to work the mixture with the pastry blender for about 20 seconds, or until the flour is evenly distributed. The dough should look crumbly, with some pea-sized pieces of butter still visible (see our video for reference).
Add water and bring the dough together: Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl. Sprinkle 4 tablespoons of ice water over it, then use a rubber spatula to press the dough into itself. The crumbs should start to form larger clusters. To check if it’s ready, pinch a small amount of dough; if it holds together, you’re good to go. If it falls apart, add 2 or more tablespoons of water and continue to press until the dough comes together. The amount of water needed depends on the level of humidity in your kitchen. Don’t worry if you need to add more than we do in our video. (It's okay if it looks like a crumbly mess. It will become more doughy in the fridge. Don't make it too wet or it becomes more like pizza dough.)
Form and chill the dough:Â Remove the dough from the bowl and gently form it into a ball on a clean surface. Cut the ball in half, then flatten each half into a disk. Wrap each disk tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 3 days. You can also freeze the dough for up to 3 months (just be sure to thaw it overnight in the fridge before using it). (Also take it out of the fridge 1 hour before using it or rolling it out becomes impossible)
Cool the dough in the freezer after rolling it out for best results.
Pumpkin Pie (the inside part)
I adapted Allrecipes Fresh Pumpkin Pumpkin Pie recipe.
I use heavy cream instead of evaporated milk.
Pumpkin type doesn't seem to matter.
2 cups mashed, cooked pie pumpkin (Steam, don't roast. Roasted pumpkin was too dry and made for a tough custard. Not great.)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk (I used 200ml heavy cream and it was fine)
2 large eggs, beaten
¾ cup packed brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, or more to taste (I use much more cinnamon - more like ¾ teaspoon)
½ teaspoon ground ginger, or more to taste
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg, or more to taste
½ teaspoon salt
Recipe
Mix everything.
(I use a hand mixer and just blitz to oblivion)
Final Assembly - this part I just mixed up the two recipes.
Preheat oven to 220ºC.
Lower to 200ºC
Egg brush pie shell. I use a 8 1/2 inch springform cake pan.
Pour pumpkin mix into pie shell.
Cook for 30 min.
If necessary cook a little longer.
Take out and immediately take out of pie tray - important!! Pie becomes super soggy otherwise.
Cool then cut!
Tip. Don't pre-bake the crust. The bottom doesn't rise even without pie weights but the side slumps over and isn't able to have enough height to hold a lot of pumpkin. But then if you are not careful the crust is slightly underbaked in the end. Best if you cook at high heat for awhile then switch to lower heat, but slightly annoying.
I haven't been able to solve this conundrum yet. I will update when/if I do!
Maybe pie weights will help to hold up the sides? 😞
Haven't used crust dust yet, as suggested by King Arthur Baking. Will update when/if I do!