Pumpkin Pie Season at my place

kw: photo essays, pies, pie crust, how to

Grab a cuppa, this is long…

Above are the ingredients and equipment needed to make two pumpkin pies, using the crust recipe from the 1962 edition of Betty Crocker's New Good and Easy Cookbook, published by Golden Press. It is the one my Mom used to teach me to cook and bake; also the recipe from the side of a can of "Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin". I have ground up my own pumpkin in the past, but it is a lot of trouble, when a good commercial product is so affordable.

The crust recipe for "1-2-3 Pastries" has these ingredients, per single-crust pie:

• 1 cup + 2 tbsp. unbleached flour (2 tbsp. = 1 fl. oz.)
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil (I use canola oil)
• 2 tbsp cold water

The recipe includes a bit of salt but I leave that out. I double these amounts for two pies (2c+2oz flour, ⅔c oil, 2 oz water).

I put the flour in a glass bowl and shape a hollow in it using a fork:

Pour the oil in the hollow and fold in:

When fully mixed it will be a little crumbly:

Sprinkle the water over the mix and fold in thoroughly. Press the dough together and let it sit to homogenize while preparing to roll the crusts.

The crusts are rolled between sheets of waxed paper. To make the lower sheet of waxed paper stick to the table, get it very clean and then moisten it well:

Put a piece of waxed paper on the wet table, shiny side up (it'll curl upward). Take half of the dough and shape it into a ball in your hands, and then press it onto the waxed paper.

Put a second piece of waxed paper on top, shiny side down, and press with your hand (at this point I wipe my hands with a paper towel). Then roll it. I roll it in all directions to get it as round as possible.

Here it is, ready to be put in the pan:

Slowly peel off the top sheet of waxed paper. Dry all around with a paper towel, then lift the front edge partway and dry underneath.

Slip the pie pan in there and gently lift the pie crust. Then invert it onto the pan:

This process is just a fiddly bit of gradually pulling the edges up and getting nearly all the air out fron under the crust. I got the wrong camera angle; near my left hand is a bit of crust pulled up to let air out as I maneuver the rest into place:

Gather the overlapping stuff around the edge into a rim that you press into a raised rim. The pie recipe will not fit inside without this step:

While rolling the second crust I got a photo of a useful step: rolling around the edge with the end of the roller on the table, to give it a slight taper. You can leave this step out, for a little more thickness at the rim.

 Here are the two crusts ready for filling:

Here is the filling recipe:

These cans for two pies used to have 30 ounces of pumpkin. That made pies that were just a bit deeper, but somewhat harder to carry over to the oven. The finished filling is very goopy and slops out of the crust if you wiggle even a little. So you'll have the ingredients in text form, in the order I use:

• 4 large eggs, beaten in a big bowl
• 1 can (29 oz.) pumpkin
• 1½ cups sugar with spices mixed in:
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• 2 cans Evaporated Milk

This shows the 4 eggs ready to beat (not whip! this isn't an omelette), and the spices sitting on the sugar ready to stir in. I stir them in and then add after I add the pumpkin and mix it with the eggs. Before any of that I heat the oven to 425°F (~220°C).

Here I am stirring the eggs.

In goes the pumpkin:

After stirring in the sugar-spice mix, I add the evaporated milk, half a can at a time:

I use a big plastic ladle to spoon alternately into the two pie shells. At the end, I eyeball what is half and drag that into one shell, then use a rubber spatula to get the rest into the other.

Two pie shells, loaded and ready to cook. I first move them to the countertop next to the oven.

Then I put them in the oven. I hold them so that when I put the pie on the oven grate I don't get a burn.

The recipe says to lower the temperature after 15 minutes, but with two pies I use 20 minutes. I kept the oven open longer, so it takes longer to re-heat. So I lower it to 350°F (175°C) and cook for 45 minutes. Then I check it, which is what I am doing here, by poking the tip of a knife into the center. If nothing sticks to the knife, they are done. If only a tiny bit sticks, I give then another 5 minutes, otherwise I give them another 10 minutes and re-check.

Here they are, all done, pulled out of the oven, sitting on racks. You can see that they began to crack around the edge, which is a good sign that the filling is cooked and properly stiff.

I support cookie sheets with whatever is handy (pill bottles, cup cozies…) to keep dust off while they cool for an hour or so, no more than two hours. They'll still be warm if you serve them right away. Otherwise, refrigerate them.

I cover them to put in the refrigerator. The first layer is waxed paper. I cut a piece a little longer than the width of the pie, and fold it in half, then half again, then fold a triangle as shown here. One more fold is coming.

Here is the piece, folded four times so the arc is 1/16th. I am holding it where I plan to cut. I cut a slight arc that crosses both edges of the triangle at a right angle.

Unfolded, that yields a circle. Put this on top of the pie so it won't stick to plastic wrap.

Both pies are covered (one cover is not pressed on yet), ready to wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

The Libby's recipe makes a great-tasting pie, better than if you use "pumpkin pie spice", and this kind of crust is the flakiest I've ever encountered. It is also much lighter than a crust made with lard or another solid fat. Enjoy!