- Do you love pumpkin pie,
but find the perils of a soggy crust
to be a bit intimidating?
Fear not because today we're gonna make
an amazing silky pumpkin pie with a crust
that's crisp throughout.
Hey, you're watching Preppy Kitchen, where I, John Kanell,
teach you how to make delicious homemade dishes
for your family and friends.
This pumpkin pie will be spinning
onto your plate in no time.
So let's get started!
First off, what might be the most important
part of your pumpkin pie, the pie crust.
I whipped up a batch of my really easy and favorite
crisp butter crust, which you can click up here for,
but you can definitely use your own family favorite
or even a premade pie dough.
Here's the deal though.
What is the bane of a pumpkin pie?
It is a soggy crust, and it's not gonna happen here
because we're gonna blind bake it.
First off, let's roll out the dough though.
A little sprinkle of flour.
The key to rolling out any pie dough
is just to keep it moving.
You wanna make sure that it is floured and moveable,
otherwise, it's gonna be a frustrating mess.
We're gonna roll this out to a little bit less
than a quarter of an inch.
I'm using like a nine inch,
or nine and a half inch deep dish pie.
So I want to have, maybe, like a 12 inch round.
So here I've rolled it out a little bit.
Gonna do a bit more flour and flip it upside down.
When you make a pie dough, you do have to chill it,
so it comes together.
But after it's chilled,
you have to let it sit up on the counter.
So take your chilled pie dough out,
let it sit out for maybe seven minutes,
depending on how cool it is.
You wanna be able to roll it out, like I am,
but you don't want it to crack,
and you don't want it to be ooey gooey.
We're almost there.
That looks good.
This is my dish.
You can see it's got a little bit extra.
Now we're going to collect our pie dough.
Sort of roll it onto my rolling pin really loosely.
Now, let's transfer it into the pie dish.
When I put this pie crust in,
I am easing it in like this from the outside,
so I am pressing in.
I'm not pushing down.
We're gonna trim the excess now, and kind of up to you.
It depends on how much of an edge you want,
but I'm just gonna leave, like, about an inch
of excess from the inner edge.
Right, now we're gonna fold the edge in like this,
so fold it under.
You could do whatever edge you want,
but my favorite is just using your thumbs and index finger
to kind of create that nice super rustic look.
If you wanna be just a bit more fancy,
you can start pinching it out like this,
and it gives it, I don't know,
just a little bit something extra.
Pinch, pinch, pinch.
This pie is nice and pretty.
So what we're gonna do now is pop this into the freezer
for about 15 minutes to firm up,
and, while it's freezing, set that oven to 425
because this is gonna get baked hot.
Oven is nice and hot.
This is really firm,
so now it's time to blind bake the crust,
and here are the steps.
You'll want a sheet of parchment paper,
you'll want some tin foil, and...
I'll just call it, "Aluminum foil."
And you're also gonna want either some pie weights,
like I have...
These are the ceramic weights that you can reuse
over and over again.
Or you could use dried beans.
Those work totally fine as well.
We're gonna use our parchment paper as a shield
between the foil and the pie crust.
I'm gonna pretend I'm making a snowflake
back in elementary school.
There we go.
Okay, place that in there.
And here's the deal.
This is slippery.
This is gonna get really soggy for a moment
while it's baking, and it could slide down,
so I'm using a double layer of foil
and just placing that in here.
Gently press that foil against the edge.
You wanna have that foil gently supporting the pie dough
and keeping it up during that taxing baking process,
kind of like calling your best friend
when you're having a bad day.
All right, spread the weights out.
This is gonna bake at 425 for 10 minutes.
Then you'll see what happens next.
While my crust is blind baking,
we're gonna make the filling,
and here's the other thing that's so important.
You have to warm the filling.
It is just beyond.
You cannot get a perfectly baked pumpkin pie
if the filling is ice cold; it just doesn't work that way.
Open up that can of pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling.
And this is a 15 ounce can, in case you're wondering.
I'm not sponsored in any way for these videos,
but I do like using Libby for my pumpkin puree.
It has a wonderful, bright color, and the taste is better.
I've tried some of the supermarket brands,
and I just wasn't happy about it.
This is a special occasion,
and I want it to look and taste the best.
Like, you can see; look at this color.
So much beta carotene.
Another thing is, if you're using a pumpkin puree,
and you're like, "Oh, this looks kind of...
Like not perfectly pureed," go ahead,
just pop the puree into the food processor and whiz it up.
You'll get a smooth silky result.
This, however, it looks great.
To the pumpkin puree, I'm gonna add
half a teaspoon of salt, three quarters of a cup
of packed brown sugar.
You could use light or dark; it's up to you.
And now it's time for the spices.
We're gonna have half a teaspoon of cinnamon.
It could be a bit more generous if you want.
A quarter teaspoon of ground ginger; adds a nice bite.
Gonna do a quarter teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg.
Freshly grated nutmeg is one of the small joys in life,
so you've gotta try it out.
All you need is a microplane or a rasp and some nutmeg.
And if you're like my mom, you're not a fan of nutmeg,
go ahead and sub in some allspice; it is also amazing.
Last but not least, a pinch or about an eighth of a teaspoon
of ground cloves.
We're gonna whisk this up,
and then we're gonna bring it onto heat.
So here's the deal.
We're gonna mix this up and warm it,
but we are also gonna warm the milk and cream.
So into a little bowl or measuring cup,
one cup of heavy cream and half a cup of milk.
I'm using whole milk,
but you could use 2% or whatever you have on hand.
Microwave this for about a minute to 90 seconds.
We wanna warm it up too because right now it's ice cold.
Remember: cold is your enemy for this pie.
You want everything nice and toasty.
So into the microwave,
and then this goes on heat.
My timer just went off.
Let's go to the next step in our blind bake.
This comes out.
(sharp exhales)
Hot.
(metal scraping)
Turn your oven down to 375 now.
Okay, just let this cool down for a minute
because it is, like, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot.
Uh, carefully, take out your tinfoil.
Aluminum foil, sorry.
Okay.
All right, here's the deal; look inside.
It's starting to puff up because of all that steam,
so what we have to do is dock the crust.
You gotta just, like, really pierce the crust
to let the steam out because it'll kind of self heal.
The nice part is this outer ring is completely baked
and holding everything in place now,
so even though this is kind of loosey goosey down below,
this outer ring is preventing it from slouching.
This is gonna go back into the oven at 375,
but you can see this is looking pretty golden already,
so we're gonna be protecting it with some foil,
and I like to reuse my tenting too.
There's no reason to throw it away.
Fold it in place there, crimp the edge off.
And right now the outer ring is protected;
the inside can get nice and baked through.
Back into the oven for about 10 minutes
or until you see that bottom is dried out.
My milk and cream is nice and toasty,
so let's warm up the pumpkin and whisk it over heat.
Medium low, please.
Break up that sugar, whisk it up,
and you're gonna see that,
in addition to warming the pumpkin puree,
you're also really working the sugar in
and basically melting it,
so it's one nice mixture.
You'll be mixing this for maybe like three to five minutes,
just until you can see that plop.
There we go.
Those are those little burps that we're looking for,
so we can take this off heat now.
It's super toasty.
Oh my god, that smell is beyond amazing.
You gotta make it this way.
Let's put this aside for just a moment,
and we're going to just break and beat
three eggs that are also room temperature.
While you're whisking, here's the deal.
You want a silky smooth custard.
You don't wanna have any scrambled eggs.
This is hot; this is warm.
What we're gonna do is temper the mixture.
So just drizzle in a little bit of milk
while you're whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk, whisking,
and you're warming up the mixture.
And once that's good, just go and add the rest in.
This is good.
We have our mixture, this warm eggy creamy milk.
Bring this back over here
and just whisk that into the pumpkin now.
In you go.
Whisk that in there.
And the only thing I wanna tell you
is to make sure you get all those corners
and really have a nice, smooth homogenous mixture.
So there's some little pumpkin bits lurking on the bottom.
Just find them with your whisk and mix it all
nice and through.
My mixture is mixed, the timer just went off,
so let's take a look at the crust and see where it's at.
That's looking good, so right now, take the foil off,
and you can see it's a little bit puffy,
but we just have to dock the sides a bit and push them back.
If you wanna see...
You can probably see better than I can,
but, here, look at the bottom.
How does that look?
Nice and golden, right?
This is gonna be so crisp even two days after.
So you can have this pie hanging around,
and the leftovers are fantastic.
While I wait for this to cool down,
I'm just gonna mix up a really quick egg wash
just to get the edge because I want it to look perfect.
So for the egg wash, which is optional,
but it is just the crowning glory to any pie
to have a wonderful beautifully golden glossy crust,
you'll want one egg.
It doesn't matter the size 'cause you'll have a lot extra.
A dash of cream ;you could use up to a tablespoon.
And if you don't wanna use cream, you could use milk,
you could use water; they all work fine.
Give it a nice thorough mix.
You do not wanna have any, blech, leathery globs
of egg whites in your crust.
It's not cool.
There we go.
We have a nice, beautiful color.
I'm just going to brush the edge before the filling goes in
because, if you do it the other way around,
you can get like a little glob of egg wash on the filling,
and that will mar your beautiful surface.
Okay, this looks beautiful.
This is fine to use for your omelet tomorrow,
so just put it in plastic, save it for later.
And now pour that in there.
Nice.
I'm gonna show you one of my blogger tricks.
So first of all, just give it a little bit of a smooth
'cause it has some texture, which I don't like.
But what's all this; what's all this nonsense?
They're air bubbles, and I'm not happy with them
because, instead of having a glossy smooth surface,
like you would see in a magazine,
you'll have like little pockmarks,
which is not my favorite thing to see.
So I'm gonna use a heat gun,
but you could just use a hairdryer.
Let's just pop it and you'll see what happens.
This is like an ultra hairdryer.
Don't use it on your head.
Look at all these horrible little bubbles.
Let's pop them.
(heat gun whirring)
What is that magic?
Just give it a little bit of a once-over
'cause there's some deeper bubbles hanging out in there,
and it's as easy as that.
You could definitely use a hairdryer instead,
but I love the smooth surface you get.
It's the little things in life, right?
Tent it carefully.
Fold that edge over.
We're gonna protect the crust
because it'll probably bake the entire time
with the tenting on.
Although, if you see that it could be a bit more golden,
just take the tenting off
in the last 10 minutes of the bake.
This is ready to go into the oven at 350 for about,
I would say, 45 to 55 minutes.
That's the time where you're gonna wanna check on this,
see if it's set, and, when it's set,
it'll have a little bit of a wobble in the center,
but it'll be mostly set.
You don't wanna over bake it
because, no matter what you did beforehand,
you could crack it,
and it just won't have that luscious silky texture
that we all love in a pumpkin pie.
Once that pie is ready,
jiggles just a little bit in the center,
go ahead, turn the oven off, crack the door open,
and let it cool for about 30 minutes in the oven,
that way, it will have a wonderful slow warming
and no shocks of cold to make it crack.
I cannot tell you how happy I am with this pie.
It came out just as I hoped it would: silky on the inside.
I could tell when I cut it that it was really silky,
but the crust is perfectly baked throughout
and so flaky too.
It's gonna be amazing.
before I take a bite, If you like this recipe,
check out my holiday pie playlist.
All the favorite holiday pies
that you can make with confidence,
and they'll be delicious too.
Now, it's time for a bite,
and, yes, we're eating it by hand.
(gentle music)
It's truly like filling my heart with joy.
It's like hitting all the buttons,
washes of neurochemicals going over.
You've gotta make this recipe.
If you can bake, you gotta make it, okay.
If you like my recipes, hit that like button and subscribe,
and I'll see you in the next pie video.