How to Make a 100-Mile Pumpkin Pie
NOVEMBER 5, 2007 - Though pumpkin pie is the classic Thanksgiving desert, during my last two years of local eating I had sadly put thoughts of it aside. You couldn’t make it without nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon, I thought. Take those away, and you’d either have a pie that tasted like a) nothing or b) straight pumpkin, both of which seemed like bad qualities in a desert. Instead I made blueberry or strawberry-rhubarb pie from fruits I’d frozen earlier in the year - but it didn’t feel quite right.
So this Thanksgiving I decided to be bold and develop my own recipe even though my mother-in-law was in town for the Canadian holiday, which because of our colder climate falls six weeks before the US date. She had previously said that my spiced pumpkin pie was “the best ever.” Does lightning strike twice? Could I hope to achieve this in-law approval rating again? You can now take advantage of what I learned from my trial.
As an additional hurdle, instead of making the pie with brown sugar as I used to do, I tried honey. I had a panic when after my accustomed 40 minutes of baking, the whole middle of the pie was still runny. However, I moved the rack down one notch and after another 20 minutes (I covered the crust edge with foil to keep it from browning further) it was done.
The mother-in-law’s verdict? “This is the classiest pumpkin pie I’ve ever had.” Phew! -ADS
Read my recipe on The Daily Green.
