Pumpkin Pie

It's just gone Hallowe'en, and I had bought two pumpkins - one to make into a lantern and one to bake pumpkin pie with.

The lantern went down a storm with the local kids, but I didn't have time to make pumpkin pie from the other one until today.

My cooking pumpkin was quite large, and I ended up getting two pies' worth of filling from it.


So, this is how to make a Pumpkin Pie.


First, prepare your pumpkin. Roast it whole in the oven at 200C until the skin blisters  and darkens, and it starts to collapse under its own weight. Remove from the oven and let cool for a bit.

Stab through the side wall of the cooked pumpkin and drain the juice that has gathered in the centre of the pumpkin with the seeds. Pull off the skin, cut it open, and scoop out the seeds. Cut the flesh up into chunks, pile them in a sieve and allow the juice to drain out for 10-15 minutes. Then weigh the drained flesh to work out how many pies' worth of cooked pumpkin you have.

Next, make some shortcrust pastry, and line your pie tin(s). For each 500g of cooked pumpkin flesh, you will get enough filling for one 24cm diameter pie. Blind bake your pie crusts.

Finally, prepare your filling. For each 500g cooked pumpkin flesh, use

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp each of: ground cinnamon, ground ginger, freshly grated nutmeg.
• Either: 1 can of sweetened condensed milk
• Or: 1/2 can of evaporated milk and 6oz brown sugar

Put the cooked pumpkin flesh into a food processor or blender along with the milk/sugar, spices and eggs. Blend until smooth.
Pour the mixture into the pie crust and bake for 30-40 minutes at 200C, until the filling is set.
Cool and chill before serving.

I made my pie filling in two batches, one using condensed milk and the other using evaporated milk and brown sugar, and layered them in the two pies. The second batch with the brown sugar came out a lot darker than the first, as you can see in the photo above.


Categories: American Dessert