Brown Sugar Pumpkin Pie

I have made this pie twice in one week. I had extra pumpkin, yes, but it really is fantastic. It's veering into the 'much too much' category for me-ultra rich, ultra sweet- but my roommate is in love. Maybe you will be too.

The recipe comes from Bon Appetit's Thanksgiving issue from 2009, and I've made no modifications. You can find the recipe here.

It looks much more elaborate than the Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie, but is actually much less involved (no cooking of the filling pre-baking).

Start by making the streusel-y topping (chopped walnuts-though you could definitely swap these for other nuts-pecans, hazelnuts, even almonds would be nice, brown sugar, cinnamon and a touch of salt):

Roll out your pastry and fit into the pie shell, decorating the edges if you like. Compare this shell (made while watching Waitress and drinking beer) with second version, where I was all neat and fancy with triangle cut outs. Remember the risks of distracted baking.

The shell is then blind baked with pie weights/pennies/beans to hold its shape.

You can easily prepare the filling by hand or by mixer, simply by combining the brown sugar, spices, eggs, pumpkin purée and heavy cream.

Fill your shell and bake until filling is jiggly but the top has set. Cover with brown sugar/nut mixture and continue to bake until the filling is puffed and topping has browned.

It can be served at room temperature or cold, and goes best with cinnamon whipped cream.

Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie

Gourds are taking over. They're everywhere-decoratively perched outside of otherwise soulless corporate supermarkets, overflowing at farmer's markets, begging you to pick them at local farms. There's something romantic about making pumpkin pie with the flesh of a pumpkin you picked, roasted, and scooped out its innards with your very own hands. But it is seriously not worth the hassle, get the canned stuff.

For one thing, the giant jack-o-lantern pumpkins that make up the bulk of these kitschy displays do not a good pie make. If you insist on a truly DIY pie, go for the smaller pie pumpkins. But it's messy, inconsistent and time intensive compared to readily available canned or frozen pumpkin purée which will produce better results in most cases.

Canned pumpkin purée served me well in this year's Canadian Thanksgiving pie making endeavor. See last year's here. I went for a sour cream pumpkin pie recipe from Gourmet Today, which nicely cut the sweetness of the pumpkin and gave a bit of welcome tang.

Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie

For the crust:

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 3-4 tbsp ice water

Mix flour and salt in a large bowl and cut the butter in with a pastry cutter, a couple knives, a food processor or a stand mixer (I've had good results with this, just make sure the butter is really cold). You want small pea sized lumps of butter-the idea is not to cream but to leave these lumps which will turn into glorious flaky pastry. Add in just enough water so your dough comes together, and divide into 4 portions (this next step I hadn't done before and am not sure it made a huge difference, but if Gourmet says so...). On a lightly floured surface, smear each portion forward with the heel of your hand. This helps distribute the fat. Once completed or skipped, gather all the dough into a ball, flatten into a 5-inch disk and wrap and refrigerate at least one hour. I usually make the dough a day ahead to save time. It also freezes well.

When you are ready to roll out your dough, lightly flour your surface or place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375˚. Trying to keep it as cool as possible, roll out your dough until it will fit a 9-inch pie plate. Because pumpkin pie has a custard filling, the crust is blind-baked (pre-baked sans filling). Once you fit the dough into the pie plate and decoratively crimp the edges to your liking, prick all over with a fork and fill with pie weights, dried beans or even pennies (make sure you line your pastry shell with foil first).

Using a pyrex pie dish is the best way to check in on browning. Bake your shell approximately 20 minutes with the weights in, and an additional 10 without, until pale golden. Cool completely.

Meanwhile, get to work on your filling:

• 1 1/2 cups sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups pumpkin
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp salt

Heat 1 cup of the sour cream (reserving 1/2 cup) in a large metal bowl set over a pot of boiling water until warm, stirring occasionally.

In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, egg yolks, brown sugar, spices, salt and reserved 1/2 cup of sour cream. Add to hot sour cream and cook over simmering water, stirring occasionally for about 6 minutes to thicken the custard.

Remove bowl from heat and cool in an ice water bath (in a larger bowl, or if you're out of larger bowls, the sink), stirring occasionally until cool.

Whisk egg whites with an electric mixer (difficult to do without) until they hold stiff peaks. Gently fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the pumpkin mixture and slowly incorporate the remaining whites.

Pour filling into your cooled shell and smooth the top (mine kind of overflowed, but it will all work out). Bake until filling is set and puffed around the edges, 40-50 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature and serve with whipped cream, dosed with cinnamon if you feel like getting fancy.

Pumpkin Pie and more

These are my confessions: I bought frozen pie crust. And it was okay. It made more sense than buying flour, shortening, a pie plate and a rolling pin. If you are buying frozen pie crust, look for one made with lard, vegetarians be damned. Tenderflake is a good brand.

Now I may have taken shortcuts on the crust, but the filling is totally from scratch, including the pumpkin purée. Canned pumpkin is pretty good and totally suitable for pie, but pumpkins are abundant and cheap right now and roasting them takes very little effort. Buy a pie pumpkin, smaller than jack-o-lantern size. Pre-heat oven to 400˚. Cut in half, remove seeds and stringy bits (save the seeds!) with an ice cream scoop/a spoon/your hands. Smear the fleshy insides with butter, brown sugar, a bit of orange juice and maple syrup. Place halves face down on a baking sheet and bake for about 40 minutes, until you can easily pierce the skin with a fork. Let cool and remove skin.

Brown Sugar Pumpkin Pie-adapted from Fine Cooking #35

• 2 - 2 1/2 lb pie pumpkin to yield 2 cups purée (prepare as described above)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 9 inch pie crust

1. Preheat oven to 375˚. Put the cooked and cooled squash in a food processor if you've got one and purée until smooth. If no food processor like me, whisk vigourously and try to remove any lumps.
2. Combine purée with brown sugar, eggs, cream, spices and salt and whisk until smooth. Pour filling into pie crust and bake until firm, about 50-60 minutes. Let cool before serving.

Notes: I easily got 4 cups of pumpkin from the pie pumpkin I bought, so doubled the recipe for 2 pies. Also, this is epic with whipped cream. Leftovers are totally acceptable breakfast food.


Now what to do with all those seeds? Wash them, remove any stray pumpkin pulp, let them dry on some paper towel and get ready.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

• However many pumpkin seeds you have
• 1 glug of oil (I used olive oil)
  
• Salt, to taste

Preheat the oven to 325˚. Add oil to your bowl of seeds and toss to coat. Spread seeds on a cookie sheet and add as much salt as you like. You could also go with a spicy coating perhaps, or garlic. Your choice! Bake approx 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes until seeds are golden.

We could not stop eating these. They are so simple to make and delicious, crunchy, salty, fatty. They are wonderful.