Perfect Pumpkin Pie

With all the things I enjoy that have pumpkin in them, it may be a surprise that I don't like pumpkin pie. I think it's the texture. I don't mind the taste, the texture is just... weird.

However, since plenty of people in my family do enjoy pumpkin pie, I started making it for the holidays a few years ago. (And it's slightly hard to make a recipe when you can never judge if there is anything that needs to be changed about it....) Apparently, it's quite awesome.  I'll take their word for it, because I've tried it and thought "meh, it's still pumpkin pie." 

So, if you haven't decided on what to make for dessert for Christmas.... everyone (but me) loves pumpkin pie! This is exceptionally easy to make, too. I haven't seen or played with other recipes, for the simple reason that this is so easy and I never get any complaints or "maybe you should try doing x" comments.

One thing that could be fun to do (and I did this with my apple pies too) is use cookie cutters to make pretty designs around the edge. Obviously, for pumpkin pie, I wanted cookie cutter pumpkins on top! I wish I had some smaller cookie cutters, but since no one wants small cookies.... I don't. ;)

Remember, comments are love! 
     

(Oh, and I apologize profusely for the picture. I made this one for Thanksgiving, and forgot to take a picture til I got to Mama's. At that point, I didn't have the camera; just my cruddy camera phone. The shine on the top of the pie was some slight condensation; I had to put the warm pie in the carrier for the trip. Oops.)

Perfect Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

• 1/2 Teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 Cups all-Purpose flour
• 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
• 1/3 Cup shortening
• 4-5 Tablespoons cold water
• 15 Ounces canned pumpkin
• 14 Ounces sweetened condensed milk
• 2 Large eggs
• 1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 Teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 Teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Redi-whip

Directions
If using a store-bought crust, skip the first 5 ingredients and steps 2-5, and prepare crust as directed.

1. Heat oven to 425°. 
2. In a medium bowl stir together flour and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in shortening until pieces are pea size. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the water over part of the flour mixture, gently toss with a fork. Repeat moistening flour mixture, using 1 tablespoon of the water at a time, until all the flour mixture is moistened. Form pastry into a ball.
3. On a lightly floured surface, slightly flatten pastry. Roll pastry from center to edges into a circle about 12” in diameter.
4. Wrap pastry circle around the rolling pin. Unroll into a 9” pie plate. Ease into pie plate without stretching it.
5. Trim pastry to ½” beyond edge of pie plate. Fold under extra pastry. Crimp edges as desired.
6. Whisk pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices, and salt in medium bowl until smooth. Pour into crust.
7. Bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°; bake an additional 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted 1” from crust comes out clean. Cool. Garnish as desired.

Yield/Time

Serves: 8 Yields: 1 pie

Prep Time: 15 Cook Time: 50

Source (for original): Taste of Home for the pie itself, Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook for the crust

Jam Tarts! (Or, what to do with leftover pie crusts)

So, do you remember all those pies I've been making? Well, I don't know about you, but every time I make pie crust, I always have extra. I'll eat a bit of it just plain, but my all time favorite thing to do with extra pie crust is make jam tarts.

This is something I would do at my Grandma's house, when I was little. If she was rolling out pie crusts, she would let me use to extra crust. It was always fun, and they tasted so good with the hot pastry shell & jam! It's like a mini, Serena-sized blackberry pie! (Because, of course, you have to use blackberry jam!)

I don't remember exactly how we did it then, but now I roll out the extra, use a cup to cut out muffin tin sized circles, and place the pastry in a muffin tin. Press it in slightly, then add a bit of jam. Maybe 1 to 2 tablespoonfuls? I just plop some in there; there is no measuring. (And, of course, homemade jam is best. I've made them with blackberry, strawberry, & apple jelly; blackberry & strawberry being my favorites of course!) Bake it at whatever you are baking the pie at (350 or 375 usually) for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the pastry is as browned as you want it to be & the jam is hot & bubbly.

Then try not to burn yourself when biting into that warm deliciousness.

(But if you don't succeed, I don't judge you. I burn myself every time. Every. Time. You would think I would learn to wait like a grown-up.)

Do you have something fun you do with leftover pie crust?

Apple Pie: Some For Now, Some For Later....

This may be surprising, but my love of sweets doesn't really extend to pie. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike pie, it's just not my first choice for a yummy sweet after a meal. However, we had a lot of apples this year. In addition to the 1/2 bushel we got at the orchard, we got another bushel or so from my in-laws. 

Since I was up to my ears in apples, I had to find things to do with them. I made 3 batches of applesauce, 2 batches of apple jelly, 2 batches of apple crisp, 2 batches of peanut butter apple muffins, 2 loaves of apple bread, 1 dehydrator full of dried apples, and still had enough apples that I decided to make some pies to put in the freezer.  (This is, of course, in addition to the apples that we've just eaten plain.)

So far, I have made 5: 1 to make sure I can make a decent apple pie, and 4 to freeze once we determined that I do make a good pie. (Between Mama, Nate, and two of my coworkers, I got plenty of compliments; apparently it's more than decent. Again, I'm not really a pie fan, so it's honestly hard for me to tell.) 

Since I am making so many, I had quite a bit of fun with the top crusts, too. Out of the five, I only did one 'normal' crust. (Which I don't have a picture of, because honestly, who cares about that one?)

 I've made 2 lattice-one we ate (pictured), and one for the freezer.

I got creative and had fun with cookie cutters, too! One star....

And one tree! At some point around Christmas I know we'll wind up getting a pie out of the freezer, and this one will be perfect!

Now, neither of the cookie-cutter pies pictured above is cooked. To freeze them, I prepared as directed below & froze prior to baking. Per my awesome big brother who has done this before, you just have to bake for an additional 10-15 minutes when you take it out of the freezer. 

Don't they look yummy? Everyone seems quite excited that we are going to have fresh apple pie into the winter/spring/summer (if they last that long). I'm just glad I have most of the apples used up.... only another dozen or so left. That should be enough for another apple pie, and maybe some apple bread too....

Before I get too overwhelmed with the amount of apple-something-making I need to do still, here's the apple pie recipe I used!

 Remember, comments are love! Do you make apple pie regularly? How do you decorate the crust?

 

Apple Pie

Ingredients

• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour   
• ¾ teaspoon salt   
• ⅔ cup butter-flavored shortening   
• ¼ - 1 cup cold water  
• 6 cups thinly sliced, peeled apples
• ¼ to ¾ cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ⅛ teaspoon ground ginger (optional)

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl stir together 2 ¼ cups flour and salt. Using a pastry blender, cut in shortening until pieces are pea size. Sprinkle small amounts of the water over part of the flour mixture; gently toss with a fork. Repeat moistening flour mixture, using small amounts of the water at a time, until all the flour mixture is moistened. (I always use more than they recommend, which is 1/4 cup. My crusts turn out great, so I just go into the mixture is moistened enough; never really measure.)  Form pastry into 2 balls.
2. On a lightly floured surface, slightly flatten each pastry. Roll from center to edges into a circle about 12” in diameter. Wrap pastry circle around the rolling pin. Unroll into a 9” pie plate, without stretching it. Trim pastry to ½” beyond edge of pie plate.
3. In a large bowl, stir together sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger (if desired). Add apple slices; toss to coat.
4. Transfer apple mixture to pie plate. Cut slits in remaining pastry shell and cover apples; crimp as desired. 
5. (Alternatively, can also prepare lattice shell or cookie-cutter designs. For lattice: cut the dough into even strips, approximately ½” wide. Place strips across the apples, with about ½” space between each. Fold back alternating strips, halfway across the pie. Place a strip perpendicular to the parallel strips. Unfold the folded strips over the perpendicular strip. Repeat with original strips that were not folded back originally. Keep repeating steps until half the pie is covered, then repeat with the other half. Crimp edges. (For a picture tutorial, go here. This is the site I used when I was trying to figure out an easy way.) For cutouts, use desired cookie cutter shapes to cut out enough pastry to cover the pie. Form extra dough into a ball and roll out again as needed to obtain enough shapes. Place around edge of pie, moving in circles to cover the pie in slightly overlapping layers. Leave some small sections of pie uncovered to let out steam. See pictures above.) I apologize for the cruddy directions... there's a reason I'm not a teacher.
6. Cover edges of pie with foil to prevent overbrowning.
7. Bake at 375° for 40 minutes. Remove foil, bake for an additional 20 minutes or until apples are tender and filling is bubbly.

Yield/Time

8 servings

1 ½ hours

Nutrition Facts

395 calories, 18 g fat, 4 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 219 mg sodium, 57 g carb

Comments

For sweeter apples, use smaller amount of sugar. For the apples I used, I only used ¼ cup.

To freeze, prepare as directed then freeze prior to baking. When you want one, remove from freezer then bake as directed, adding an additional 10-15 minutes of baking time.

Source (for original): Better Homes & Gardens