Fall Harvest: Apples & Pumpkins

Pumpkin Pie

By Emily Jones

Puree

Pumpkin Pie | photo by Emily Jones

Recipe from About.com

• 1 fresh pumpkin, up to 4 pounds

Cut top from pumpkin. Scrape out stringy membranes and seeds.

Cut pumpkin into large pieces and place on a baking sheet. Bake about 45 minutes or until pumpkin is soft. Let cool until you can comfortably handle it.

Scrape the soft pulp from the skin into a food processor or heavy-duty blender. Discard the skin. Pulse until evenly pureed. Reheat if serving immediately or refrigerate and use within 3 days. The pumpkin puree may be frozen in an airtight container or zip-top bag for 10 to 12 months.

Fresh Pumpkin Pie

• 1 cup sugar pumpkin (approximately 6″ in diameter) puree
• 1 frozen pie crusts ( or just premade leftover crust from the roommate)
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup cream
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

After making puree, whisk eggs and cream together add sugar and spices. Last add the puree, then pour into crust. Bake 350 degrees approximately 45 minutes, make sure to check a few minutes early and see if your crust is getting brown. Check doneness by ‘jiggle factor’: if the center is still jello-y, leave it in a few more minutes.

Shelly Fraser Mickle spoke on National Public Radio in 2007 about pumpkin pie in a humorous way detailing the energy that goes into making a pie. Mickle says, “If you must make a pumpkin pie, forget fresh pumpkins. Stick with the can.”

Picking the pumpkin, baking it into submission, blending your puree of fruit sugar, egg, spice and getting a beautiful custardy result is difficult, assuming the crust holds its own. In our mini test kitchen we set out to try a few of these recipes and report the results.  We started with what we knew: pumpkin pie, but of course it could not be that easy.

I chose to make pumpkin pie with fresh pumpkin and instead of evaporated milk/condensed milk I was using heavy cream as the recipe suggested. I baked the pumpkin in quarters until it was soft enough to shove under the hungry blades of the roommate’s immersion blender.

However, in this recipe they boil the pumpkin and then bake, which is great because the one I looked at did not suggest this – also remember to wait until pumpkin is cool enough to add eggs otherwise the egg will cook into scrambles!  This pie was fine but I really think the evaporated milk adds something that cannot be replicated by this low-fat, less-processed version.

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