(Pilgrim) Pumpkin Pie #2

For those of you who celebrate, Merry Christmas Eve!

For the second pumpkin pie, I turn to a cookbook that, unfortunately due to its antique nature, has lost its front and back covers (and first few and last pages). Ergo, I will call the book The Pie Cookbook for lack of a better title (and because it is FULL of recipes for pies). Just as a reminder, here is the comparison chart:

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

Pilgrim Pumpkin Pie

Crust – Easy Flaky Pastry

2 ¼ C flour

1 tsp salt

¾ C shortening (NOT butter or margarine)

5 tbsp cold water

Mix dry ingredients together, then cut in shortening. Add just enough water to mix to hold pastry together.

Although normally you would only need a half-version of this recipe in order to make a 1-crust pie, I made the whole recipe because I wanted to share this with friends. Rather than creating one large pumpkin pie with slices, I instead rolled out the dough and cut it into small circles to fit in my muffin tins to make pumpkin tarts! Also, for this recipe, instead of baking the crust first, you refrigerate it for a few hours, then pour in the filling and bake all at once.

Filling

1 ¾ C pumpking

¾ C brown sugar

¾ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

½ tsp nutmeg

1 C evaporated milk

½ C water

1 tbsp brandy (optional)

2 eggs, beaten

Heat pumpkin over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring often, to dry out slightly. Combine sugar, salt, and spices, then stir into pumpkin. Remove pumpkin from heat and add milk and water. Slowly and carefully add pumpkin mixture to eggs, being sure to temper. Push mixture through fine strainer to catch any lumps of pumpkin or egg.

Pour filling into shell. Bake at 450^oF for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 300^oF and bake for 45 minutes or until done. I slightly adjusted the baking times for my 24 pumpkin tarts: 10 minutes at 450^oF and 40 minutes at 300^oF.

These turned out really great! They were very cute, and my friends seemed to enjoy them. We could actually taste the amount of salt in the pastry and the filling, but that turned out to be a nice contrast to the sweetness of the pie. The flavor of the filling was really good, especially with the salt, so I’ll score it as 7/10. This particular crust turned out quite flaky and nice, very light and perfect for the tarts, so I’ll give it a 7/10. Unfortunately, heating the pumpkin and tempering the egg cause the Ease of Prep score for this particular pie to drop to a 4. Overall, that gives it a tie score with the New England recipe.

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

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