Pumpkinless pumpkin pie...really!!!

[Bamboo Boy]

So I was looking around for a pie crust recipe online and came across this recipe for "faux pumpkin pie". It's made of cooked, pureed carrots instead of pumpkins. I was dubious, to say the least. The website seemed very confident, so I had to give it a whirl.

It was amazing! I think next time I will increase the spices, and I should add that I had no evaporated milk so I used whipping cream and milk instead.

I really really recommend trying this! I can't get canned pumpkin where I live and every attempt at fresh pumpkin pie seems lacking.

link:

http://www.pickyourown.org/carrotpie.php

Is this ok to link to that here? It's not a commercial site or anything. If it should be problematic I will be happy to comply with whatever needs to be done to rectify it. I stop short of Human Cent-iPad, though.

-BB

[Push You Down]

Glad to hear someone vouch for it. I have a recipe for carrot pie in a couple of different pie books, but I've yet to try it.

[Bamboo Boy]

Originally Posted by Push You Down

Glad to hear someone vouch for it. I have a recipe for carrot pie in a couple of different pie books, but I've yet to try it.

Do it, do it! No fear, it works!

-BB

[Tethered Kite]

Not sure that I will try it, but I'll bet it has a nice appetizing color.

I read in the local paper a couple of weeks ago that for a while now pumpkins have been bred for appearance and size rather than taste. So the growers must be thinking of contests and decorations rather than cooking. I suppose there are fewer people making their own pies.

And I have had the same disappointment as you in trying to make one from scratch.

My solution this year was to top it with pecan streusel, warm carmel sauce and whipped cream. No calories in that!

[Chronos]

Anything tastes like pumpkin pie, if you put enough nutmeg in it.

[teela brown]

I once made pie using steamed, mashed garnet yams in place of pumpkin. It was absolutely wonderful - in fact, I think it tasted better than pumpkin. I think any sweet, orange vegetable would substitute for pumpkin very well.

[Bamboo Boy]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Anything tastes like pumpkin pie, if you put enough nutmeg in it.

This.

[Bamboo Boy]

Originally Posted by Tethered Kite

My solution this year was to top it with pecan streusel, warm carmel sauce and whipped cream. No calories in that!

Speaking of which-

we had it for dessert tonight (the second of two I made yesterday), this time with fresh whipped cream with a little vanilla sugar mixed in. That was a bull's eye. Calories make EVERYTHING taste better! It was great!

[Euryphaessa]

Hey, this sounds awesome. Thanks for the link!

[Lemur866]

Sweet potatoes taste more like pumpkin than pumpkin does. So the secret to making pumpkin pie from scratch without canned pumpkin is to use sweet potatoes.

If you try to buy a jack-o-lantern pumpkin and cook it, you are going to be sorely disappointed. They are bred for size and looks, and are bland and watery.

To make pumpkin puree like you get in the cans, you need to get kabocha or other dense squashes that are bred for taste and sweetness rather than looks.

But any dense sweet orange or yellow vegetable would work, carrot is a pretty reasonable substitute if you can't get orange sweet potatoes.

[crowmanyclouds]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Anything tastes like pumpkin pie, if you put enough nutmeg in it.

Is that Jules' secret sewer rat pie recipe ya got there?

CMC

[TriPolar]

Seconding the use of sweet potatoes and/or yams. Tastes more like pumpkin than pumpkin does.

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Anything tastes like pumpkin pie, if you put enough nutmeg in it.

Pretty much. My favorite "pumpkin" pie is made from sweet potatoes.

ETA: I swear I did not see any posts following yours, which appear to share my opinion.

[Casey1505]

Originally Posted by TriPolar

Seconding the use of sweet potatoes and/or yams. Tastes more like pumpkin than pumpkin does.

Third. I've been eating sweet potato pie my whole life, only to discover it hadn't been pumpkin 35 years later. Carrots, unless the size of softballs, just don't seem worth the effort.

[InternetLegend]

You can often find actual cooking pumpkins around this time of year if you have some fairly well-stocked grocery stores. They're much smaller than the jack-o-lantern types. The best ones are a little larger than a softball. Of course, pumpkin is one of those things, like sweet potatoes and beets, that really doesn't lose much but texture in the canning process, and if you're using it in a pie, the canned puree works just fine.

I'm still going to try this with sweet potatoes, though. We always end up with too many sweet potatoes in the fall.

[GilaB]

A cooking pumpkin should work, but I've heard good things about using butternut squash, which is easier to work with, anyway.

[salinqmind]

I dunno, I've made pumpkin pies from canned pumpkin and they were good. But the one I made from a fresh pie pumpkin was so good, it was unreal. Of course the crust was home made and the whipped cream was real.

I'd be interested in trying out the carrot pie. I always seem to have a big sad bag o' babby carrots forgotten in the vegetable drawer.

[Dendarii Dame]

This reminds me of Ma's improvised apple pie using a green pumpkin in Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter.

[Turble]

Here's a real easy one that some people say tastes like pumpkin pie (I think it's just because of the cinnamon.)

Amish Bread Pie

[CalMeacham]

Is this like the Mock Apple Pie without apples that they print the recipe for on boxes of Ritz Crackers?


Do you use Ritz in it?

[Skammer]

Where do you live that you can't get canned pumpkin? We use it year-round. My wife makes amazing pumpkin pancakes.

[Son of a Rich]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Anything tastes like pumpkin pie, if you put enough nutmeg in it.

Anything?

[Balance]

Originally Posted by InternetLegend

I'm still going to try this with sweet potatoes, though. We always end up with too many sweet potatoes in the fall.

Make sure you mash/blend them very well to break up the "strings". You want a very smooth texture, and sweet potatoes are much more fibrous than pumpkin.

[Chronos]

My basis for the "anything" statement was, one of the first times I made apple pie, I had some nutmeg in the cupboard, and figured a few shakes would be a nice touch. I wasn't exactly wrong, but I didn't realize just how little nutmeg you need to have "a touch". So my apple pie ended up tasting like pumpkin pie.

[Bamboo Boy]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

Is this like the Mock Apple Pie without apples that they print the recipe for on boxes of Ritz Crackers?


Do you use Ritz in it?

No, no Ritz. Couldn't get THAT here, either. For whoever asked up there, I live in Denmark. The grocery scene here is extremely impoverished.

But- does that really exist? A mock apple pie recipe with no apple but Ritz crackers? That's hilarious! I must know more...

Off to Google

-BB

[salinqmind]

On impulse, I bought "L'Oven Fresh Sweet Potato Pie", $2.99, at Aldi's. I mention this because it was remarkably GOOD! The crust was crispy-flaky like home-made, it was a little lighter and more delicate than pumpkin pie, and I highly recommend it. A bit small, 8" maybe. Aldi's also has pecan pies (haven't tried them) and several cakes, plus a freezer full of all kinds of great looking goodies.

[california jobcase]

Our school system used to (maybe does still) feed kids sweet potato pie at Thanksgiving and tell the kids it's pumpkin- fooled us clear through our senior years.

I have made a couple of acorn squash pies which were quite passable punkin pie substitutes.

[Private Bin]

Mock apple pie is disgustingly accurate.

There was a recipe that was knocking around on some news sites last year, and I gave it a shot. Basically a pie crust with a filling of boiled Ritz crackers, sugar, and citric acid.

[VOW]

I actually MADE the "Mock Apple Pie" shown on the Ritz cracker box.

It was many years ago, back when we rode the covered wagons across the prairie. I don't remember all the ingredients aside from crust, Ritz crackers and apple cider vinegar.

It was DAMNED good, and sonofagun, it tasted like APPLE PIE!


~VOW

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by VOW

I actually MADE the "Mock Apple Pie" shown on the Ritz cracker box.

It was many years ago, back when we rode the covered wagons across the prairie. I don't remember all the ingredients aside from crust, Ritz crackers and apple cider vinegar.

I'm not even sure the original recipe contained apple cider vinegar. From what I remember, it had no connection to apples whatsoever, just the spicing of the pie itself.