By Kari Svenneby
Try this delicious pie for Thanksgiving. Why buy a pie when you can make a much better one yourself. This year make your pie with homemade puree. It is a little more work, but it taste much better and the added bonus is that it is great lesson for your children. Pumpkins are not only used for Jack Lanterns but also for baking. If you have the chance you can even head out to a pumpkin patch and pick pumpkins for the front porch and the pie.
This recipe has walnuts on the top of the pie, it’s a different spin on the traditional pumpkin pie, but it tastes so good.
Pumpkin Pie:
Pastry for 10-inch, single-crust deep-dish pie
1-3/4 cups or 398 ml can pumpkin purée
2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp each: salt, ground ginger,
1/4 tsp ground allspice
Pinch pepper
1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup orange juice
2 tbsp bourbon
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
Nut Crunch (optional):
1/2 cup walnut pieces, lightly toasted, chopped
1-cup sugar
Topping (optional):
1 cup whipping cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
Bake the pie shell first, and chill it.
Making your own pumpkin purée for baking.
Split the pumpkin in half and remove seeds. Remove stringy fibers with a metal spoon. Place the pumpkin halves in a bowl filled with a couple inches of water. Cover the bowl with a lid or towel and bake for 90 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees F. Once your pumpkin is cooked through the skin should just slide off.
Now you can puree your pumpkin in a food processor until smooth.
Drain off any freestanding water and your pumpkin puree is ready for use
In a bowl whisk together pumpkin, sugars, flour, cinnamon, salt, ground ginger, allspice and pepper. Add cream, juice, bourbon and vanilla. Whisk to blend.
Whisk eggs together in another bowl and add to the mixture. Whisk into pumpkin mixture until blended and smooth.
Pour batter into pie shell. Bake at 350 F until filling firms up and puffs slightly at sides, but is still a bit wobbly in the centre, 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours.
Nut crunch
Chop walnuts, caramelize sugar in pan and mix walnuts in the caramel. Be careful so you don’t burn the sugar.
Sprinkle walnut caramel in a circle close to the edges on the pie.
Let pie cool on rack
Serve the pie with a dollop of cream.
The inspiration for this pie was from Toronto Star,
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