Pumpkin Pie - Made from a pumpkin not a can!

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I have been wanting to make my own pumpkin pie since I made my last apple pie(last year around this time). I remember telling the hubby I wanted to make one from scratch with an actual pumpkin not a can or store bought mix or a frozen one. I remember his face scrunching up at the thought of all the work. Funny thing is HE doesn't do the work and HE gets to eat it, so I don't know why he makes the face in the first place... he doesn't even have to clean up my mess when I do my experiments with food (most of the time :P).

pumpkin2Since I wanted to make one and I remembered what I had said the year before, I grabbed a few small pie pumpkins when I went to the store. The first one I made something with was a mac and cheese. The next I'm using in my pumpkin pie! The others I still have to come up with what to use them for.

As for the pie. I was going to use the rest of the pie crust from my Portuguese bean tarts but I either didn't store it properly or it just doesn't freeze well, so I had to improvise by using puff pastry instead. I lightly dusted both sides with whole wheat flour and rolled it out so it was thinner and placed it in my pie tin. As with a pie crust I used a fork to mark around the edges to give it that pretty crimped look, then put it in the freezer to keep it cold before filling.
As for the filling. I cut the pumpkin open scooping out the stringy stuff and the seeds (seeds I saved for later to roast because they are great as a snack) and then proceeded to cut chunks of the pumpkin up until they were in more manageable pieces. Put them in the oven at 375F for about 30 - 45 minutes or until you can smell the pumpkin and when you take a fork to them it slides in easily without very much force. Take them out and let them cool before using your fork to scrape the flesh off the skin of the pumpkin.
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Put the flesh in a big bowl and puree it, or do what I did and add in 1/3 cup of whipping cream( I had it from another recipe or I would suggest 1% milk) 1/3 cup brown sugar ( I used a brown sugar substitute), 1 tablespoon powdered cinnamon, 1 tablespoon powdered ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, and 3 eggs. Puree/Mix this together, but I do suggest an immersion blender or a regular blender to make this smooth. Pour it into the puff pastry pie crust and cook at 350F for about 1 hour.

The filling will turn the orange/brown color it does when cooked (though not as orange as store bought which tells me they add coloring to store pumpkin pies) and will slightly rise (very subtle but you'll notice a difference from what it was before going in the oven). The crust will be brown and not as puffy as a puff pastry but only slightly more than a regular pie crust. I also suggest if your oven doesn't cook evenly (as mine doesn't) turn your pie about half way through cooking. Let cool before eating... also I read from the many pie recipes I looked at that the pie needs to set. I haven't a clue if this one needed to or not because we didn't eat it till the next day.

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Whip up some whipped cream, a scoop of vanilla ice cream or eat it just as it is. The hubby and I ate ours plain and both thought either a little more sugar in the pie filling it's self or a nice whipped cream would make it perfect!

11 comments:

Thistlemoon said...

It looks fantastic! I think the whipped cream would do the trick!

Marina said...

Uau! Very good looking pumpkin pie. And with the fresh pumpkin, very tasty I bet!

Divina Pe said...

Hey, that looks great. I want to make my own pumpkin pie too with real pumpkins. :)

Unknown said...

JennDZ - Thank you! I should have saved some of the whipping cream just for that purpose.

Marina - Thanks! Yes it was quite good, not overly sweet thanks to me not using very much sugar.

Divina - Thank you! It was fun making something like this from scratch for the first time and it turned out pretty well :)

NMOS said...

Do you know if this is the same way to make sweet potato pie? Looks delicious.

Unknown said...

NMOS - I don't know if it's the same way (I've actually never even HAD sweet potato pie)but I would think it would be the same type of thing, you may not even need to "blend" the potato up like I did with the pumpkin as mashing could probably do just fine.

I did read that boiling the pumpkin was another way to do it but I think the baking lets it become more flavorful and I'm sure it would be the same with the sweet potato :)

Steve said...

Wow, you're more ambitious than me. LOL I'm not crazy about working with pumpkins and cleaning them out for the kids when we carve them let alone making pie from them.
Well done.

Unknown said...

Steve - Thanks! I don't mind doing the messy stuff with food, especially when it comes out so good in the end :)

Lisa said...

There is no such thing as canned pumpkin here in New Zealand. So anything that calls for pumpkin puree of any kind has to be done from scratch. There are lots of very quick and easy ways to cook pumpkin that will give a nice puree, Roasting is definately best, followed by steaming and then there is the trick of just stabbing your pumpkin skin whole and microwaving the whole thing until soft, which actually does not take that long.
Boiling is not great for getting a nice puree, since too much water is retained in the pumpkin. Lovely, fresh, nutritious and additive free :)

Georgina Ingham | CulinaryTravels said...

This looks fabulous. I'm bookmarking the recipe to try,

http://culinarytravelsofakitchengoddess.wordpress.com

Kristina said...

This looks great - I love pumpkin pies made with fresh pumpkins. You should enter this recipe in the Better Recipes Pumpkin Pie Food Blogger Recipe Contest.

 

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