It's getting chilly here at the moment and that means pumpkin and pumpkin pie season! This pumpkin pie recipe is one of my most precious recipes because I used to make it professionally. I promise that you will swoon over this home made pumpkin pie with just the right amount of spices and delicious pumpkin filling and is designed for both American and non-American ingredients. It also has just 20 minutes active prep time. This is a pushy recipe Dear Reader! Perfect for Thanksgiving!
Some of you may remember me telling you that I used to make Southern American style cakes and pies for a Southern restaurant. That was a long time ago and since then I've adapted and made my own spins on their classic American recipes. So here is the pumpkin pie in all of its delicious glory. You will notice one thing: there's no shortcrust crust in this pumpkin pie. It's replaced with a cookie crust (like with a cheesecake crust). Despite my reservations (I love pie crust!) I think that this makes it ever better! The mixture of cookies adds a delicious extra flavour and I promise you will not miss the pie crust. Plus a crumb crust is so much easier than a pie crust and the whole thing can be done in a food processor or Thermomix! Once it bakes it really does end up tasting similar to a shortcrust pie crust, just with more flavour. Trust me!
The Secret To This AMAZING Pumpkin Pie!
1 - For the pumpkin pie crust there is a combination of two types of cookies used: Malt o Milk and gingernut biscuits. In Australia it's really difficult to get Graham crackers and really this mixture of cookies or biscuits actually has more flavour than Graham crackers. I love the added ginger flavour from the gingernuts. You can of course use Graham crackers if you are in America and just add 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger.
2 - I use browned butter instead of melted butter in the crust for an extra nutty flavour. You can use melted too if you cannot be bothered browning butter. I just brown a whole lot of butter at the same time and keep it in the fridge ready for use. I've got a post on how to make browned butter here. It will also seem like not enough butter but trust me, it really comes together perfectly.
3 - A tin of Libby's pumpkin pie is crazy expensive here in Australia so the best thing is to make your own especially since pumpkin is available all year round. The best pumpkin in Australia to use in pumpkin pie is butternut pumpkin or squash. It's less stringy and has a really lovely, sweet flavour to it. I show you how to make your own pumpkin pie filling here from scratch!
4 - This recipe is perfect for a 22.5cm/9inch/1.4 quart pie dish. I use these glass pie dishes.
Apart from this there is nothing fancy or unusual to this classic pumpkin pie. But this is one of my favourite ever pies so I love baking it in Autumn when I get a lot of pumpkin in my vege box. And if you're interested, other recipes that I used to make for this restaurant are Pecan Pie and Red Velvet Cake. When Mr NQN gave some to our neighbour he sent Mr NQN a message back the next day. He had had a stressful day at work and was sleep deprived and physically and mentally exhausted. "I needed something to eat something but I just didn't feel like anything that was in the fridge and cupboard. Enter Lorraine's pumpkin pie. I can't think of a better example of "exactly what I needed to have" just materialising out of nowhere like that. Tell Lorraine her works of culinary art have now crossed over to being therapeutic. I had that pie and instantly the nausea left, the belly was satyisfied beyond belief and the stress if the day was dissolved. Slept like a fricken baby. How does she do it?" which was probably the nicest feedback I have ever had!
Speaking of Autumn, now that the days are getting shorter I have to photograph everything really quickly. This puts a bit of pressure on things as the light disappears early (I only really shoot in natural light) but in our new house I have a few options. My studio faces west so the light lasts for a bit longer and I can shoot until 4-4:30pm (in our previous apartment, it faced east and I had to get photos done by 3pm or else). Most of the windows downstairs face west but one of the best windows in terms of light in on the east facing side of the house.
Unfortunately the venetian blind is broken there (we didn't realise it was broken until the day we moved in!) so I don't tend to use it much in summer but in autumn and winter when I need more options I decided to try my hand shooting there. It has the most beautiful light there so I pulled back the broken blind and stared at the window. The window frame was now white.
I asked Mr NQN, "Did you paint this window white?" and he shook his head. "It used to be brown," I said to him showing him a picture of a lemon crunch cake I had shot there a couple of years ago where the window frame was clearly brown. We deduced that our painter must have painted that but I hadn't asked him to and neither had Mr NQN. And a year on, we hadn't even noticed it!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you know every corner of your house? Do you ever notice something that has been changed a while back? And do you like pumpkin pie?
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