My New Go-To Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Okay, okay, I know, I know. Thanksgiving was a WHILE ago. But I desperately need to share this pumpkin pie recipe anyway. It's the best one I've ever made...SO...GOOD...so yum. This made enough filling for a 9-inch pie, with a bit extra that I baked alongside it in a ramekin (to test taste just in case!). I served it with vanilla ice cream, but any whipped cream would work well, and it tastes delicious on its own!

I had to bake this a lot longer than what's suggested, but could have baked it a little less. Make sure you mix it COMPLETELY! I put this in Dorie Greenspan's Good-For-Almost-Anything Pie Dough (you can find the recipe here), which was a little flakier than expected but I just pressed it into the pan and it worked amazingly well. Definitely making this again next year!

Pumpkin Pie
Recipe from Linzers in London

1 1/2 cups pumpkin
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 eggs
2 cups whole milk
2-3 tablespoons brandy


Mix all ingredients except eggs, milk and brandy, then add lightly beaten eggs and milk.

Gently swirl in brandy, then pour into prepared 10 inch pie shell.
Bake at 425 (218 c) for 20 minutes, then turn down to 350 (176 c) for another 25 minutes or until custard is set.

Dorie Greenspan's Fresh Fruit Tart

I think I made this in September.  It turned out pretty good--my mom went out and got the fruit for me and the fruit was absolutely gorgeouss. A very easy, delicious recipe! The recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, which of course is my go-to recipe book for impressive desserts! Her recipes are always beautiful and delicious and easy to follow, although sometimes time-consuming (and definitely not low-cal...but this one wasn't so bad, I mean, the majority of the sugar was natural fruit-sugar!).

Key Lime Pie

I'm not even sure when I made this. I think it was late August--man, I'm behind on posting! And not really baking anything new, so I thought I'd share some of these delicious recipes I've made and never had the chance to share. Pretty sure this was delicious. I'd never made key lime pie before and was a little scared that it was undercooked at first--baked it a little longer than the directions, but in the end, so long as it's solid when you take it out of the oven, I think the key lime pie is baked.

Key Lime Pie

Recipe from Kitchen Runway

1¼ C graham cracker crumbs

¼ C sugar

5 Tbs melted butter

1 14oz can of condensed milk

1 whole egg

1 C lime juice (key lime juice can be used but keep in mind key limes are tarter and more bitter than regular limes.  You can cut the amount of juice down to ½ C for the recipe)

zest of 1 lime

Whipped Cream:

1 C heavy whipping cream

3-4 Tbs of powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)

1 tsp vanilla

lime zest and lime slices

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a medium bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter.  Press the mixture into a 9 inch pie or tart pan.  Place pie pan on a baking sheet and bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let crust cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, whisk together condensed milk and egg until smooth.  Add lime juice and zest and whisk until combined and smooth.  Gently pour filling into cooled pie shell (on baking sheet) and bake on the middle rack for 15 to 18 minutes until center of pie has set.  Remove from oven and cool pie on rack and then chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Top with whipped cream and garnish with lime zest and slices.

Whipped Cream:

In a large, deep bowl, add heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla. Using an electric hand mixer whip the ingredients together on medium high speed for 7 to 8 minutes until it begins to hold stiff peaks.

Pumpkin Pie

This is wayyy late, I know. I made this for Thanksgiving alongside the Cornbread Muffins I made last year. I really liked the pie filling, but I wasn't so big on the crust. If I made this again, I'd use a different crust recipe. But the filling was great and really easy! I served the pie with homemade whipped cream, and made the pie a day ahead. You can store it at room-temperature.

Pumpkin Pie
Recipe from The New Best Recipe, found here

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced
4 to 5 tablespoons ice water

For the Pie Filling:
2 cups canned pumpkin puree (not canned pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground ginger*
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon*
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg*
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves*
*(Alternatively, use 2 tablespoons homemade pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup milk
4 large eggs

For the Pie Crust:
Place the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor and process until combined. Add the shortening and process until the mixture is the texture of coarse sand, about 10 seconds. Drop the butter pieces into the machine and process again until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, with butter bits no large than small peas, about ten 1-second pulses. Transfer to a medium bowl.

Fold 4 tablespoons of the ice water into the flour mixture. Combine just until a dough forms. Add another tablespoon of ice water if needed. Flatten dough into a 4-inch disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.

Remove the refrigerator (if refrigerated more than 1 hour, allow to stand on the counter top until malleable). Working on a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough to a 12-inch circle. Transfer the dough to a 9-inch pie plate by rolling the dough around the rolling pin and unrolling it over the pan. Lightly press the dough into the pan corners. Trim the dough edges to extend about 1/2 inch beyond the rim of the pan. Fold the overhang under and flute the dough edges using the index finger of one hand the the thumb and index finger of the other. Refrigerate until firm, about 40 minutes, then freeze until very cold, about 20 minutes.

Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove the pie dough from the freezer and press a doubled 12-inch piece of heavy-duty foil inside the pie shell. Fold the edges of the foil to shield the fluted edge. Distribute 2 cups ceramic or metal pie weights (or dry rice) over the foil. Bake until the dough looks dry and is light in color, 25 to 30 minutes. (Meanwhile, prepare the Pie Filling by following the instructions below.) After the pie shell bakes 25 to 30 minutes, carefully remove the foil and weights, then continue baking until light golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes.

For the Pie Filling:
While the crust is baking, prepare the pie filling. Process the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, spices, and salt in a food processor for 1 minute until combined. Transfer the mixture to a large saucepan. Bring it to a sputtering simmer over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until thick and shiny, about 5 minutes.

As soon as the pie shell comes out of the oven, adjust an oven rack to the lowest position and increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees. Whisk the heavy cream and milk into the saucepan and bring to a bare simmer. Process the eggs in a food processor until the whites and yolks are combined, about 5 seconds. With the motor running, slowly pour about half of the hot pumpkin mixture through the feed tube. Stop the machine and add the remaining pumpkin mixture. Process 30 seconds longer.

Immediately pour the warm filling into the hot pie crust. Bake the pie until the filling is puffed, dry-looking, and lightly cracked around the edges, about 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour.

Serve warm, at room temperature, or chilled. Top with whipped cream, if desired.

Rum Cream Pie 2

Ok, so for my friend Jimmy's birthday in late April, I was planning on making a Rum Cream Pie. Unfortunately, the unmarked package that I thought was unflavored gelatin was actually vanilla pudding, and I mixed it in the pie & did everything and it wasn't enough so I put another cup of whipped cream on top. Other changes are reflected below. Anyway, I had it frozen and then took it over and then it took long enough and then the pie melted and people put it in the freezer again and I thought they forgot about it. I was so embarrassed about the pie forever and then when at Steven's birthday party last week, one of my friends who lives with Jimmy reminded me about the pie and told me it was DELICOUS.

Wow, phew. I thought it was a huge crap on my reputation as a baker, because nobody ever mentioned it or thanked me and I didn't bring it up again. Good to know it was actually a success!

For this, I used the recipe for Rum Cream Pie in Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table that I also used here, but made a few changes. I used a store-bought crust (which was fine), used 1 1/4 teaspoons of vanilla pudding instead of unflavored gelatin, used another cup of heavy cream & some sugar & vanilla for whipped cream on top, and sprinkled mini semi-sweet chocolate chips on top instead of bittersweet. I froze the pie since the pudding didn't harden like gelatin.

Rum Cream Pie

This recipe for Rum Cream Pie is from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from MY Kitchen Table. I didn't actually read this book yet, just looked at the recipes, because for my mom's bookgroup mid-January, they were going to get together with things made from this book and I decided to chip in. This recipe was extremely easy and I can't wait to try it again!

Dorie Greenspan's Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie

No post in a while because I've been busy, but luckily for Thanksgiving I had time to bake more! First thing I made was my first pumpkin pie, which I was really nervous about...it turned out okay but I did way too many substitutions and I think they made it lose a bit of flavor. I used pumpkin pie spice instead of most of the spices, and then didn't have cloves so had to leave that out. And I didn't have rum (because I'm not 21) so I left that out, too. But I did make my own whipped cream, which people liked.

I made Dorie Greenspan's Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie (recipe found HERE, and originally made Dorie Greenspan's Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough (also on that same link), also available in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. But this pie crust kinda freaked me out--I didn't know I wasn't supposed to add ALL the ice water, just enough to make the dough pliable, so my dough ended up looking like this:

So, unsure about whether it would work out, I whipped together a different pie crust that turned out a bit small but was looked a little better. I'll post that recipe below. Anyway, when I prebaked Dorie's pie crust as she instructed, the edges turned a little dark...but I still poured the batter into this one because the pie crust worked out anyway. It turned out, Dorie's recipe had enough for both of my pie crusts to be filled!! I don't know if that was because she intended it for deeper pie dishes or what, but it worked out and I used both my pie crusts.

My friend hosted Thanksgiving to 20 people, and about one and a half to three fourths of my pies were eaten. I didn't think it was GREAT, but it was good.

Basic Flaky Pie Crust
From Allrecipes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening, chilled
3 tablespoons ice water


Whisk the flour and salt together in a medium size bowl. With a pastry blender, cut in the cold shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Drizzle 2 to 3 tablespoons ice water over flour. Toss mixture with a fork to moisten, adding more water a few drops at a time until the dough comes together.

Gently gather dough particles together into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling.

Roll out dough, and put in a pie plate. Fill with desired filling and bake.

(Above) The first pie crust
(Above) Second pie, unbaked

Chocolate Pie

My friend Marrisa's birthday was yesterday. She didn't want me to go all out for her and make a cake, and requested cookies which I'll post on Tuesday...but I just couldn't let her celebrate her birthday without something to cut into! So I searched for an easy, tasty recipe so that I could make both the cookies AND the "cake"...or in this case, a pie.

Again, having no hand-mixer was a problem because this pie had the whipped egg-whites on top, but instead of killing my own arm I had the lovely help of David. Hooray! This was my first time making any sort of pie, so I was kind of intimidated. Still, it turned out great!

This cake was very thick and chocolatey--VERYYY chocolatey. But it was also very, very easy.

First, I made the crust. I've always thought that making the crust was the hardest part. Maybe it was...and it probably usually is, but I chose the simple crust by the blogger who posted this pie recipe originally, Homesick Texan.

Crust
Recipe adapted from Homesick Texan

1 cup of flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
1/8 cup milk

Mix flour and salt. Mix oil and milk. Pour oil and milk into flour and salt and stir until combined into a dough. Can add more milk if dry. Roll crust out between two sheets of wax paper, line a buttered pie pan with crust.

Chocolate Pie
Recipe from Homesick Texan

Filling ingredients:
4 tablespoons of cocoa or 1 1/2 squares of baking chocolate
3/4 cups of sugar
5 tablespoons of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of milk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 egg yolks, beaten slightly
1 tablespoon of butter

Meringue ingredients:
2 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon of salt
4 tablespoons of sugar

Any pie crust (recipe above)

Method:
Mix your sugar, flour, salt, cocoa, eggs and milk (all except vanilla and butter) with a whisk.
Cook while stirring on medium until it bubbles and thickens, about five to 10 minutes. If it becomes lumpy, just beat out the lumps.
Remove from heat and stir in your vanilla and butter.
Meanwhile, poke holes in your pie crust with a fork and bake it at 350 until it’s brown, about 20 minutes.
Beat your egg whites with salt and when they start to get fluffy add the sugar.
Pour the chocolate custard into the baked pie shell and top with the beaten egg whites.
Add 2 T of sugar for every egg white. Bake it until it the peaks on the meringue are lightly browned, about 10 minutes.