Pumpkin Pie - Recipe

So when I made pumpkin pie for thanksgiving - I googled and read a stack of recipes and chose the one I liked the best and that sounded the most delicious.....  I then customised it a bit for us.

It has a lot of ingredients but it is really easy to make - which is cool!!

Alas, here is the recipe for Arna's pumpkin pie:

Base:

• 1.5 cups flour
• 2 T sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 2 T + 2 t of COLD vegetable shortening (kremelta)
• 1/3 cup COLD butter
• 1/4 cup COLD water

Put all ingredients in a food processor and blend until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Add the cold water and process to a dough.  Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Remove from fridge and either roll out on a floured surface, then press into greased pie dish OR just press it straight into greased pie dish.  (I didn't roll it out but smooshed it in with my fingers - all good)

The size of the dish needs to be quite large - I used a 25cm quiche dish, you could use a round cake tin or something like that if you don't have something big enough.

Bake blind at 180 for 15 minutes or until golden.

Filling:

• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 t cinnamon
• 1 t ground cloves
• 1.5 t ground allspice
• 1/2 t ground ginger
• 1/2 t salt
• 4 eggs
• 3 cups pumpkin puree
• 500ml evaporated milk, or cream, or make up milk powder to twice the concentrate
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• zest of 1 lemon

Mix well with a hand blender of cake mixer.  Pour into cooked base.

Bake at 210 for 15 minutes, then turn down oven to 175 and bake for a futher 45-60 minutes.  A knife/skewer will come out clean from the centre when it is done.

Serve warm or cool - can be deep frozen.

I found that the filling makes more than you need so I gave some away.  You can freeze the uncooked filling.

How to describe the taste..... the filling comes out like a sweet, spicy, flavoursome custard.  It is moist, smooth and quite delicious.  The base is quite savoury and complements the filling.  It is quite rich & nice with vanilla icecream.... mmmm!