Pumpkin Pie
July 10, 2006 at 4:34 PM
by Ashleigh
What do you do when you inadvertently find a can of expired Libby's Pumpkin Pie filling one Sunday while tidying up? You make pumpkin pie of course!
I come from Zimbabwe and if the can has no visible bulges, dings or signs of rust on the outside then its fine to eat, no matter how far past the expiry date. And if its not fine to eat ... well, you just have to wait a while to find out.
I used to make this using fresh pumpkin pulp when we lived in South Africa. Pumpkins don't seem to be that popular in Holland but last year I was lucky enough to find a couple in the autumn and we ate pumpkin with our meals for a few nights. I wasn't inspired to make pumpkin fritters or pumpkin pie though - we just enjoyed the pumpkin pieces roasted and steamed.
My previous pumpkin pie recipe was from Robert Carrier's Cooking for You. It's a great recipe, but I felt like trying the one in my new food processor book by Norene Gilletz.
I made a couple of changes, so here is my amended version of the recipe.
Pumpkin Pie
Homemade shortcrust pastry - use your favourite recipe. Mine is very crumbly, almost like a shortbread without the sugar. I also use a lot of lemon juice in my pastry to give it a slight bite.
1 1/2 cups canned or fresh pumpkin puree
3/4 cup dark brown sugar (donker basterdsuiker for dutch readers)
2 eggs
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
dash salt
1 1/4 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup brandy
The original recipe had ginger and ground cloves in it, but I left them out because I didn't have any.
- Roll pastry to fit a deep 9 inch pie plate.
- Process pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, spices and salt until blended. You can use a handmixer for this if you don't have a processor.
- Pour whipping cream and brandy through the feed tube while the machine is running. Process to blend. I didn't use the full quantity of cream because I didn't have enough, so just play it by ear as to how much you need.
- Pour filling into unbaked pie shell.
- Bake for 15 minutes at 425F then reduce heat to 325F and bake for 40 - 45 minutes longer. I had to cover my pie after the first 15 minutes as it browned a bit much. Just be sure to check yours.
The Robert Carrier recipe I used before used a pre-baked pastry shell and had a much shorter cooking time. I think this one, with its longer cooking time comes out more luscious than the other recipe and is less fuss too - I hate prebaking pastry! There's also quite a lot of cinnamon in this recipe, but that's because we all like it like that.
I would have taken a better photo, but that was the last piece and I ate it straight after I photographed it and then realised that I should have taken other photos with different light settings!
Comments
Yum! Niek really likes pumpkin pie, and we all like pumpkin, so I'll give this a go!
This look delish! I was interested to read that you eat roasted and steamed pumpkin. That is the usual way we have it in Australia - we don't treat it like a dessert as other countries do, although anybody who has been to the USA and tried their pumpkin pies, usually has a go at them back here, so the word gets around. One of our favorite Aussie recipes is Pumpkin Scones. Scones here are different from American 'scones', so if you want the recipe for ours, let me know.
You just "happened" to find a can of pumpkin pie filling while tidying up? What else do you hidden back there?
July 11, 2006 2:00 AM