Today on Sugar Spun Run, I'll be showing you how to make a pumpkin pie.
Hey Sugar Spun Bakers, Sam here!
And today I am so excited to be sharing another carefully tested,
well researched, and perfected recipe.
This one comes by popular request.
As many of you know, I do not personally like pumpkin pie.
I had lots of taste testers help me with perfecting this one
and making sure it was really, really good,
so I hope you love it just as much as they have loved it.
Now, for today's recipe, we are going to be starting with my homemade pie dough.
Which, I've shared this recipe many times.
This is a chilled pie dough and you'll just begin by rolling this out
and arranging it in a pie dish. Now, I am using a 10 inch pie plate
today. This is a little bit large. A 9-inch would work just as well.
Now we're going to be blind baking this pie crust,
so you'll just want to arrange the edges.
You can crimp them, you can flute them, like I'm doing,
whichever you choose is fine. And since this pie crust is going to need to be blind baked,
we are going to pop it in the freezer
and let it chill for about 20 minutes.
And, meanwhile, we’ll preheat our oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once the dough has chilled, we’ll remove it from the freezer, prick
the bottom with a fork. I like to use a crinkled up piece of parchment paper
and line that on the bottom and fill this with pie weights.
And we'll bake this in our 375 degree oven in the center rack for 15 minutes.
After those 15 minutes have passed, just remove your pie weights.
I recommend pricking the bottom of the crust all over again
with a fork just to help keep it from bubbling up while it's in the oven.
And we'll return this to our 375-degree oven, where it's going to need to cook
for about another 10 to 15 minutes,
or until the edges are a light golden brown
and the cent—the bottom of the pie crust also looks baked. That doesn't have to be golden brown,
but it shouldn't look raw when it's finished.
You can begin preparing your pumpkin pie filling while your pie crust is in the oven.
That is what I usually do because, ideally,
you’ll add it while the crust is still at least a slightly warm. If
you want to make your own pumpkin puree,
that's absolutely fine. I usually stick with 15 ounces of canned,
pumpkin puree and make sure that the can says “pure pumpkin” on it.
It should not be pumpkin pie filling, which is usually sold right next to the pure pumpkin,
and that contains lots of additives that we do not need.
So we'll just add this to a large mixing bowl.
And we're also going to add 3/4 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar,
1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract,
and then for our spices, we're kind of making our own pumpkin pie spice
here, we start with 1 and 3/4 teaspoon of ground
cinnamon, 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2
teaspoon ground allspice, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg.
Now, some pumpkin pie recipes
also use cloves. If you want to add a pinch of ground cloves,
you certainly can. My taste testers were really not big on that flavor.
I'm also not personally a big fan of cloves in pumpkin-spice-
flavored things. So I'm going to leave that to your discretion,
but I do not use cloves here.
Now we’ll also add 1/2 teaspoon of table salt or if you want to use fine
sea salt, that would also be excellent.
And we'll just stir everything together until it's really well combined.
The next thing that you're going to need is three large eggs.
Now when making pumpkin pie, one thing that I've heard a lot is
people want to make sure that it doesn't crack.
Now, a couple of cracks along the rim are actually a good way
to know that the pie is finished baking,
but you don't want a big ugly crack in the center, and I found the easiest way to avoid that
is that it really has more to do with your technique than with anything else.
So, we don't want to over beat our eggs.
And a good way to avoid over beating them into our batter is just to
crack them one at a time, in a separate bowl.
And then just lightly beat the eggs by themselves or one egg at a time.
And then we'll add the eggs, one at a time, to our pumpkin pie filling and just gently stir them in.
You do not want to use an electric mixer. You don't want to be super vigorous.
You just want to gently stir everything together by hand.
It should be completely combined, but you don't want to overdo it.
Once you have added all of your eggs, the next thing,
and final thing, that you need is one cup of heavy cream.
Now we'll just gradually stir this in and again,
we're being gentle when combining. It is very important that your batter be completely
smooth and everything be completely combined.
You just don't want to be super vigorous with it.
Don't use the electric mixer for this. Now,
once your pumpkin pie filling is done, either
your blind bake pie crust will be finishing around the same time
or it's already finished and it's cooling,
but one thing I want you to do at this point is turn your oven
temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Now grab your blind baked pie crust,
and we are just going to pour our pumpkin pie filling right into that pie crust.
And I do like to use my spatula to just smooth the top out a little bit.
Now before we take this over to our oven, I do want to make a note about the crust.
Some people like to brush their across with egg wash to promote browning,
I do not ever do this. I do want you to keep an eye on your crust though.
Now, I usually do not tent to mine with foil.
But if you're worried about yours becoming too brown,
just keep an eye on it, just turn your oven light on and peek in at it at 30 minutes
and then every five minutes after that. If it's becoming too brown for your liking,
then you can just loosely tent the sides with a little bit of aluminum foil
and that will keep them from getting too brown.
I typically do not have to do this with my pie crust,
which is why I don't really worry about it. But I just wanted to let you know,
in case your oven runs a little bit hot or you're using a different size pan
that's more prone to Browning. Now if your pie crust
finishes baking before your pumpkin pie filling is done,
do not turn off your oven, just reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Now this pumpkin pie is going to bake in our 325 degree
Fahrenheit oven for 50 to 60 minutes.
Now there are a couple ways to tell that a pie is finished baking:
some people like to use a sharp knife and insert it in the center and make sure it comes out clean.
I don't like to do that because it kind of messes with that
pretty appearance of our pie. I test mine much as I would a cheesecake.
Usually when it's finished baking, you may notice some
small cracks forming around the edge of the pie,
but most importantly, if you lightly jiggle the pie,
it should be mostly set. The center may wiggle very slightly,
but it should not be very loose.
This actually looks perfect, so our pumpkin pie is finished baking.
Now, your pumpkin pie is going to need to cool to room temperature,
and then you're going to want to pop it in your fridge, where it's going to need to chill
for several hours before you can serve it.
So, I have a pie that I prepared yesterday that we can go ahead and dig into right now.
Of course, no pumpkin pie is complete without some whipped cream.
I will make sure to link to my homemade whipped cream recipe, which just
elevates this to completely new heights. You have
got to try that with this pie. And that is how you make the perfect pumpkin pie,
at least according to my taste testers. I hope you guys enjoyed this super easy recipe.
And if you try this one out, please let me know what you think.
I always love hearing from you. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
Not bad.