Foodists

Pumpkin Pie, the “Old Fashioned” way

It’s Thanksgiving time again in Canada, and this year I decided to make my own pumpkin pie—from scratch. No canned pumpkin this year! Making a purée from roasted pumpkin is a bit of work, but I hoped it would be worth it. I found numerous recipes in my cookbooks and online, but settled on this version called “Suzanne’s Old Fashioned Pumpkin Pie” on Simply Recipes which seemed to be a simple classic.

My parents are sort of pumpkin pie experts and I served my pies at the Busse family Thanksgiving dinner, so the pressure was on. My sister out did herself, roasting a delicious turkey with all the fixins—including some really awesome gravy. After dinner I served my pie with some freshly whipped cream and these pumpkin pie connoisseurs tucked in, seeming to enjoy my home made version.

When prodded for a rating as they polished off desert, my father shrugged with a casual “8 out of 10,” saying, “I prefer a denser, more spicy custard.” My mother, on the other hand, thought it deserved a higher rating of 9/10, saying she enjoyed the lighter custard. Everyone else, including my niece who never eats pumpkin—or anything resembling a vegetable for that matter—loved it. The pie was a success, or was it?

This morning I awoke feeling deflated. 8 or 9 out of 10? What’s that, a B or B+ at best? Not good enough. I knew I could do better, so back to the books I went. After some considering various approaches, I decided to attempt the latest Cooks Illustrated recipe Revisiting Pumpkin Pie (pg 24, CI Issue #95, Nov/Dec 2008).

I’d love to post the recipe here for you, but CI doesn’t allow their recipes to be viewed online without a web subscriptions—even by magazine subscribers like me—so I’ll just give you some general hints. If you’re interested, let me know and I can lend you my copy of the magazine.

Cook’s Illustrated’s Francisco J. Roberts, who apparently experimented on hundreds of pies before settling on this recipe, claimed the secret to an intense pumpkin flavour was the addition of candied yams. Yup, sweet potatoes in pumpkin pie. Okay… He also suggested freshly grated ginger instead of powder and maple syrup with white sugar instead of brown sugar. His recipe also had a bit more egg yolks and salt plus a little vanilla extract, and used equal parts cream and whole milk, unlike the Simply Recipies version which called for only cream. But the CI version had no lemon rind, no cardamon and no clove. Uh-oh, will it spicy enough for my dad?

One interesting cooking technique in this recipe was simmering the pumpkin and yams on the stove top for 15 minutes to reduce and intensify the flavours and allow the spices to bloom. Make sense to me. When mixed with the custard ingredients and strained, it leaves a silky smooth filling that is already warm. So, when poured into warm, pre-cooked pie shells, they can be baked at lower temperatures for less time, reducing the likelihood of curdling or grainy texture. This leaves a denser, smoother custard—which is what my dad was left wanting.

Before I attacked my pies I did some online research and found a discussion forum on the Cook’s Illustrated website where some users expressed some concerns about the recipe. However, I didn’t have any difficulties with the instructions and my second batch of pies look and smell great. Tonight will be the real test though as we’re making dinner for some friends with a newborn baby (and have neither the time nor energy to cook these days). Tomorrow I’ll whip over to my parents house and find out if I can squeeze another rating point out of them. Wish me luck.