Pumpkin Pie

Well, with the Halloween Season upon us, and with Canadian Thanksgiving just past, and Britain not particularly participating in either, I felt it was necessary to excercise my Canadian-ness and make a pumpkin pie, damnit!

And so I did.

Here's the pumpkin I bought. It's a specific "baking pumpkin", which cost 4 times as much as the carving pumpkin of the same size that it was sitting next too. Whether it was a requirement of the pie, or a sneaky trick used by grocery stores to encourage you to buy a fancy pumpkin, I'll never know.

And here's the liquid I turned it into. Yes, I know it looks a bit like vomit... it's okay. We're all thinking it. I used the recipe off this site here, although instead of microwaving the pumpkin for 30 minutes, I chose to bake it instead to make it soft. Although this took longer than planned and was slightly frustrating.

After scraping the pumpkin out of its shell, and mixed it with evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, and a bunch of spices. Unfortunately I don't have a blender/food purifier, so I couldn't blend the mixture properly, resulting in a slightly lumpy pie. Still has lovely flavor.

First, I baked a bunch of mini-pies, which turned out quite well. Nice, bite sized morsels. Although chunky...

Oh the dishes... so many dishes...

And finally, the masterpiece! I would love to say that I made the pastry myself, too, but I didn't. Maybe next time. I have some pumpkin goop left in the freezer for future use, so who knows. This pie turned out really well, actually better than the mini-pies, since the longer baking time meant that it's less chunky in the middle.

... and, of course, the whipping cream! Can't forget that...

All in all I'm pleased that I tried this recipe, although I'm pretty sure that when I return to the land of canned pumpkin and pre-made pies, I will opt for the easier option. A fun experiment, but time consuming and expensive.

But for now, I've got pie.