I made pumpkin pie yesterday, well, sort of… I had a bowl of leftover roast butternut squash, so I made a quick sweet pastry crust and filled it with a mixture that consisted of mostly blended squash, with two eggs, a little milk, sugar and some cinnamon (nutmeg would have been nice, but my wife won’t eat it, as she thinks she is allergic - long story).
Most recipes I’ve tried for pumpkin pie in the past don’t actually have very much pumpkin in them - they’re mostly egg custard - which I think is a shame; mine was about 70% butternut squash, with the milk, eggs and sugar making up the remainder. It was really nice - a beautiful canary-yellow pie with a texture like really soft, moist cake and a rich flavour reminiscent of butterscotch.
So, do you like pumpkin pie? What’s your secret recipe?
Your recipe is similar to mine. I take butternut squash or pumpkin (butternut squash is easier to work with and tastes the same, to me), roast it, and cool it. I put the squash in a blender and puree it. I then pass the puree through a cheesecloth and squeeze all the excess water out (there is a lot of liquid in squash.) I now have my puree ready.
Or, buy a can of Libby’s Pumpkin Puree.
I then add heavy cream (the traditional Libby’s recipe uses evaporated milk), egg yolks, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and nutmeg until it tastes and looks right. I’m not sure mine is quite as pumpkin-heavy as yours, but I probably have over 50% pumpkin in my mixture.
I then put this into a homemade cookie crust. For the cookie crust, all you do is take any plain slightly sweet cookies/wafers (graham crackers work especially well), pulverize them in a blender, put in a bowl, add enough melted butter so it holds together. Spread this mixture on the bottoms and the sides of a pie pan. Easiest crust to make in the world.
Interesting; mine was only blended coarsely with an electric whisk, but it was very well cooked, so it broke down to quite a smooth puree anyway.
I also didn’t extract any of the water, so although you used less puree in total, the amount of solid matter you used was probably similar to mine.
I probably ought to mention at this point that here in the UK, pumpkin pie is almost unheard of (except when someone uses it as an obscure reference to the USA), indeed pumpkins themselves, although not at all uncommon, are not widely eaten.
I found an amazing recipe online that uses honey as the sweetener and heavy cream instead of milk. Put it together with my all-butter crust and it’s really sublime. I don’t know if I should make it this year, though. I’d really like to see my Weight Watchers goal some time soon. The other secret is that you have to use Sugar Pie pumpkin. The big watery ones don’t work.
I just want to step in here for a minute and stop all this talk that a pumpkin pie can be made with anything other than pumpkin. This is heresy, how can you say that sweet potato pie (however delicious it may be, and it is delicious) is the same thing as pumpkin! Just because it has a similar texture color and flavor!
Personally I like sweet potato pie better than pumpkin, I think it makes for a firmer filling and has a deeper flavor. I make an excellent crustless variety where I place the filling (using about the same recipe as posted above) in a narrow/deep casserole dish and bake until almost set, then top with mini marshmallows and finish until the marshmallows are golden brown (you have to be careful not to burn the marshmallow though). I use yams to make this dish, but sweet potatoes work too.
Real pumpkin pie must be made with Libbies pumpkin puree, accept no substitutes!
I’m not a big fan of sweet potatoes, they have a weird twang to the flavour that I find reminiscent of dried body fluids (lick the back of your hand, let it dry, then smell it - that’s what I’m talking about).
And canned pumpkin puree? Just doesn’t exist here.