Hey Folks,
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, with Christmas nipping at its heels. Around these parts, one can’t envision either holiday without a hearty home cooked meal, often followed by an unreasonably large slice of pumpkin pie. Here on the farm, we’ve had a surplus of sugar pie pumpkins for sale, and I wanted to put up my favorite recipe for pumpkin pie filling.
Baking the Pumpkins
If you’re starting from a whole pumpkin (and I hope you are!), the first step will be to bake the pumpkin. This is pretty straight forward, and if you’ve ever baked a squash in the oven you’ll be in familiar territory.
- First step – if the pumpkin still has a stem, remove it. Then using a large kitchen knife, split the pumpkin in half from top to bottom.
- Scoop out the seeds and the stringy innards. I recommend saving the seeds for roasting, but if that’s not your jam, then simply dispose of them with the stringy parts.
- Take the two halves of the pumpkin and place them in a baking tray with the cut sides down. I like to use a 9 x 13 Pyrex pan, because both halves will fit comfortably if the pumpkin is small to medium sized. Larger pumpkins may require a really large pan, or two separate ones.
- Add about two inches of water to the pan.
- Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for one hour.
- Once you remove the pumpkins from the oven, let them cool until you can handle them. Flip the halves over and scoop out the soft flesh with a spoon. Sometimes the skins will just slip off, leaving the remaining flesh behind. No need for further processing. You can simply scoop the soft pumpkin flesh into a measuring cup.
Filling Recipe
When I started making pumpkin pie filling from scratch, I had one major goal in mind: I wanted to find a recipe that didn’t call for evaporated milk. I just couldn’t comprehend needing to go to the store to buy this one specialty ingredient that we can’t make ourselves, and which I’ve never seen used in any other recipe. I’m sure it IS called for in other recipes, it’s just that my baking experience encompasses a pretty narrow range of goodies, and I simply haven’t run across it. Afer a little searching, I got lucky. This recipe avoids the evaporated milk, and has a great balance of spices, which results in a REALLY tasty filling.
Ingredients
- 2 cups of pumpkin purée (baked pumpkin flesh in this case)
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup half & half
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 Tablespoon flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon allspice
There’s no required order for mixing these ingredients. Just put them all in a large mixing bowl, and whisk them together thoroughly. An electric mixer would work just fine too. The main idea is to beat the heck out of it and get everything well combined.
Assuming you’ve already prepared a pie pan and crust, all that’s left is to pour your freshly prepared filling into the crust, and bake in the oven at 375 degrees for one hour.
You may want to put a tinfoil ring around the exposed crust of your pie for the first 45 minutes, and remove it for the last 15. In my experience, the crust gets a little too brown if I don’t do that part, but some folks like that, so it’s up to you!