Pumpkin Pie #5

Happy New Year’s Eve! Today concludes our holiday-themed dessert month with the final of five pumpkin pie recipes. Once again, here is our scoring matrix:

Recipe	Filling	Crust	Ease of Prep	Overall
New England	5	5	8	18
Pilgrim – Pies	7	7	4	18
Amish 1	5	0	4	9
Chiffon – Pies	9	5	6	20
Amish – 2

This last recipe comes again from The Amish & Dutch Cookbook. The other pumpkin pie recipe from this book did not turn out that great, so I was already nervous about this one. Unfortunately, this one was almost definitely worse.

Once again (I don’t know how the restaurants contributing to this book make pies without crust recipes!), I had to make a crust on my own for this pie because it only provides a filling recipe.

Pumpkin Pie

2 C pumpkin

4 eggs, separated

1 C sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 C whiskey

¼ C butter

1/3 C cream

Drain as much liquid from pumpkin as possible. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form and set aside. Add sugar, egg yolks, and cinnamon, then beat until smooth. Quickly add cream, whiskey (I only used ¾ C of whiskey because I thought 1 C would be excessive), and butter, and mix well. Sprinkle cornstarch over egg whites, then fold egg whites into the pumpkin mixture.

Pour into pastry shell and bake at 375oF for approximately 1 hour. Allow pie to cool and become firm before cutting.

 

At first, I didn’t understand the last statement – why does the pie have to become firm first? But when I removed it from the oven, I finally understood. The ridiculously high alcohol content in this recipe caused the filling to rise and become very puffy and airy. As the pie cooled, the filling condensed a little, but not much. We heavily disliked this recipe because of the strong alcoholic flavor and the strange, spongy texture. (Some of it went to the dog, our loyal garbage disposal).

I know I said before that I didn’t think you could ruin a pumpkin pie without trying, but this recipe comes as close to disaster as seems possible. The filling had a strange, unpleasant texture and an overwhelming alcoholic flavor (we could hardly taste the pumpkin), so I have to give this a 2/10. Again, since the recipe did not provide instructions for a pastry crust, I give it 0/10. Taken purely on its own, this recipe was not that difficult to prepare, so I’ll give it 5/10. The overall score for this final pumpkin pie is a pathetic 7, and that score might be kind. This was just terrible.

Recipe	Filling	Crust	Ease of Prep	Overall
New England	5	5	8	18
Pilgrim – Pies	7	7	4	18
Amish 1	5	0	4	9
Chiffon – Pies	9	5	6	20
Amish – 2	2	0	5	7

I’m sorry to have to end our pie comparison on such a sour note, but when we compare the overall scores and think back on what we enjoyed most, 2 pies rise to the top. Although The New England Cookbook’s pie recipe tied for 2^nd place score with the Pilgrim Pumpkin Pie, the Pilgrim Pumpkin Pie was a crowd favorite for its silky texture and tasty filling. And of course, the PumpkinChiffon Pie was the winning recipe with the highest score and the best review by those who ate it. I definitely recommend baking one of these two recipes for your next family holiday, or even just on a day when you’re craving pumpkin pie.

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!

Pumpkin (Chiffon) Pie #4

It’s the beginning of the last week of 2014, and we have 2 more pumpkin pie recipes before the year is over! As a reminder, here is the scorecard as it stands thus far:

Recipe	Filling	Crust	Ease of Prep	Overall
New England	5	5	8	18
Pilgrim – Pies	7	7	4	18
Amish 1	5	0	4	9
Chiffon – Pies
Amish – 2

For today’s recipe we’re back to The Pie Cookbook. I decided to try a different crust recipe, the No-Roll Pastry Shell, and the pie recipe is Pumpkin Chiffon.

No-Roll Pastry Shell

1 ½ C flour

1 ½ tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

½ C salad oil

2 tbsp milk

Mix dry ingredients together in 8” pie plate. Combine oil and milk in measuring cup, beat together, then pour all at once over dry ingredients. Mix until flour is completely dampened. With fingers, press pastry evenly and firmly to line bottoms and sides of plate and partially cover the rim. Flute edge and prick entire surface. Bake at 425^oF for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden.

It was very simple, and I liked the idea of not making too many dirty dishes or flouring my counter, but since this recipe only makes a crust for an 8” rather than a 9” pie (the standard), I had some leftover filling. I would also recommend either pricking the pie shell more times than I did, or using some baking beans or beads, because the center of the shell puffed up quite a bit during baking.

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

½ C cold water

2 eggs, separated

1 C evaporated milk

1 ¼ C pumpkin

¾ C brown sugar, divided

½ tsp salt

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp ginger

Soften gelatin in cold water and set aside. In a saucepan, beat egg yolks, milk, pumpkin, ½ C brown sugar, and seasonings. Cook, stirring, until thick.

Remove from heat. Stir in gelatin until dissolved. Refrigerate, stirring occasionally, until very thick.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Gradually add remaining ¼ C brown sugar. Fold egg whites into pumpkin mixture until smooth. Pour mixture into baked pie shell and refrigerate.

Again, this was very, very easy! Beyond that, it was very, very tasty! We loved the fluffy texture of this pie, and the filling had a great flavor, too. I wasn’t in love with the crust – it was a little too greasy for my taste. For scoring, I’m going to give this one a 9/10, because it was just really good! For crust, I’ll give it a 5/10, because it was okay, but not great. Like I said, the crust only used 3 dishes and no counter space, plus the filling was easy to make, so it gets a 6/10 for ease of preparation. Overall, this recipe scores a 20! One more pumpkin pie to go on New Year’s Eve!

Recipe	Filling	Crust	Ease of Prep	Overall
New England	5	5	8	18
Pilgrim – Pies	7	7	4	18
Amish 1	5	0	4	9
Chiffon – Pies	9	5	6	20
Amish – 2

Have a question or a request? Put it in the comments below and I’ll be sure to respond. Fröhe essen!