This has long been my favorite pumpkin pie recipe. It’s based on a recipe I discovered while doing a period project for History class in high school. I had the late 1800′s, so I chose to make my classmates a few recipes from The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories. I don’t remember what my grade was, but I remember some of the comments I received from my fellow students. One commented that he loved it, and he usually hates pumpkin pie. So there you go – this recipe is high school boy approved!
Since I’ve been getting sugar pumpkins in my CSA shares lately, I thought I’d make one up in advance for those like to plan their Thanksgiving menus a little early. Can you believe it’s October already?
Ingredients
- 2 cups pumpkin purée (see note 1) or canned pumpkin
- Pastry for single-crust 9-inch pie
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 cups light brown sugar
- 1 1/4 cups light cream
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tablespoon maple flavoring
- 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (see note 2)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F.
- Prepare pie crust and line a 9-inch pie pan.
- In large mixing bowl, beat the eggs well on low speed. Beat in the brown sugar, cream, salt, maple flavoring, spice, and pumpkin.
- Pour mixture into the pie shell and place in the lower third of oven.
- Bake at 425 F for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 F and continue to bake until crust is brown and the pumpkin custard is firm (a knife inserted 1 inch from edge should come out clean and dry). This will take about 40 minutes in all.
- Cool, but do not chill, before serving.
Notes
1. Pumpkin purée can be made fresh using a small sugar pumpkin, about 8 inches in diameter. There are many ways to cook it. This is the method I find easiest:
Quarter the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds and stringy bits. Place the quarters in a large steamer basket over simmering water and cover for 20 to 30 minutes, or until tender. Carefully removed the quarters and scrape the insides into a cheesecloth suspended over a large container (I use an 8-cup measuring cup and hold the cheesecloth at the top using an elastic). Let drain in refrigerator overnight. Discard the liquid, and purée the pulp until smooth using a stick blender or a traditional blender. It is now ready to use in any recipe calling for canned pumpkin.
2. If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, you can blend your own. Combine 4 parts cinnamon, 2 parts ginger, 1 part allspice, and 1 part nutmeg. Mix thoroughly and store in an airtight container.
So tell me… what food do you most look forward to at Thanksgiving?
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