Enter Pumpkins

Rejoice. Pumpkins are in season! From September to March of every year you can get these awesome orange orbs. Why are these gourds so great? Because you can make pie out of them, and when you buy a whole pumpkin instead of that canned puree crap, you get better flavor and more satisfaction out of the ordeal. This is mostly due to the fact that most canned pumpkin isn't really even pumpkin, it's a variety squash. You can also get the seeds from a whole pumpkin, which are great toasted, and if you are so inclined will enable you to grow your own pumpkins.

Let's make some dessert.



What you need for the crust:
1 package crushed graham crackers (about 1 1/4 cups when crushed)
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
6 tbsp. butter, chopped into small blocks

Rationality behind the ingredients:
I had  stale graham crackers that my roommate didn't want to eat, so they were convenient to make into a crust. The sugar and butter will caramelize and bind the crust together. The cinnamon will add flavor to your crust, making it pair better with the filling.

For the filling:
1 pie pumpkin (should yield around 3 cups of pumpkin puree)
Salt for roasting the pumpkin
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp. fresh ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. freshly ground cloves
1/4 tsp. fine salt

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup almond milk (or whole milk, or soy milk, or whatever milk related product you have)
4 eggs
1 tsp. bourbon vanilla extract

Rationality:
The different kinds of sugar are all about depth of flavor. Maple syrup and brown sugar are  warm and earthy and compliment pumpkin flavor nicely, but you don't want to be overpowering with any one, so use regular white sugar to avoid this. Also, you may notice I use a little less sugar than most other recipes. This is mainly because of the graham cracker crust providing other sugar. If you choose to use a regular pie crust, you may want to add another 1/4 cup of white sugar, but it's not necessary even then in my opinion. The ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt are quite obviously there for seasoning.
The almond milk gives a (very) slight nuttiness to the pie which is kind of nice, but completely optional. I might actually prefer whole milk to give a richer texture, but I didn't have any on hand. I used bourbon vanilla extract, which again is a very subtle difference in flavor and could easily be substituted. The main difference in Bourbon, Tahitian, Mexican or any other type of vanilla is the species of the plant, not the alcohol used to make the extract. Whatever you use, please don't use synthetic vanilla. It only contains ONE of the flavor compounds (vanillin) that are in true vanilla extract and as a result has a very one-dimensional taste. That would be like putting ketchup on a fine steak, especially considering the work put in on everything else in this recipe.

Let's bake.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. It's time to roast a pumpkin.

You can use whatever kind of knife you want, but a serrated one works best if you don't have extremely sharp knives (I, unfortunately, do not have extremely sharp knives). Chop the pumpkin in half and start digging out the seeds with a spoon and putting them in a separate bowl. Once the seeds are out, lightly salt the inside of each pumpkin half. This helps break down more cell walls in the gourd's flesh during roasting, resulting in better texture.

Put your gutted pumpkin halves face down in a roasting pan, cover with foil* and toss it in the oven. It can take anywhere from 45-90 minutes depending on your pumpkin, so allow time for this. When it's done, it should yield to a poke with a fork, but shouldn't be so mushy that you can stab it. 

*Side note: If you have a big roasting pan with a lid, use that. I just don't have one.

As for the seeds that you put in a bowl, rinse them and pull off as much pumpkin flesh as you can, then strain them.

 And spread them out on a towel to dry. This will take several hours, so put them somewhere out of the way.

Now start making your crust. You should be able to finish it while your pumpkin is still roasting.

Gather all of the ingredients for the pie crust.

 Toss them in a blender or food processor and pulse until it looks like this. I personally like to have some small chunks in mine to give more texture to the crust.

 Next put the mixture into a greased pie pan, distributing it evenly.

 I like to use another pie tin to help shape the crust more evenly. Just mash it on top of the filling and press very hard.

 And now you have a crust, ready to bake.

If your pumpkin still isn't done, just toss the crust on a different rack and bake it. This will take somewhere between 7 and 10 minutes, so check it often after 7 minutes. When it comes out of the oven it should be golden brown, crispy, and smell glorious.

Note the small areas where there is no graham cracker. That's where little chunks of butter melted from. Don't worry about them.

Once your pumpkin is done you can start working on the filling. Also, ramp your oven's heat up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for the pie baking. Your gourd should look all mushy and ugly like this:

Scoop the flesh into a blender container and puree it until smooth.

Now get all of the rest of the first group of ingredients ready and into a sauce pan. I've got an] incredibly helpful tip for grating ginger (or garlic) with a fine grater.

Wrap it in plastic. Why, you ask?

Grate your ginger, and simply lift it off. Congratulations, you just saved 5 minutes of using a toothpick to try and clean every tooth of your grater. Some ginger juice will get on it, but that rinses out very easily.

Now, combine everything in the first ingredient group into your sauce pan and bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer immediately. Stir very often to prevent pumpkin from burning to the bottom of your pan. Cook it for about 10-15 minutes. This gives time for the spices to infuse and helps further break down the pumpkin cell walls, smoothing the texture. If your bubbles from simmering start sputtering out of the pan, take it off the heat, it's done.

I use a dowel rod to stir pretty much everything because it's a great multi-tasker and is extremely easy to clean.

While the sauce cooks, combine the second group of ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk well to combine.

Pour your simmered pumpkin mixture VERY slowly into your egg and cream mixture. Remember, there are eggs in there. You don't want to cook bits of eggs with hot pumpkin mess, it results in nasty little curds that are texturally horrifying. So to avoid this, use the tempering method and vigorously whisk small amounts of pumpkin in at a time. Continuously whisk and gradually add the rest of the pumpkin mixture.

Once you're finished whisking, strain* the finished mixture through a medium mesh sieve. Don't try eating what's left in the strainer when you're done, it's actually pretty gross. I tried it, mostly it's ginger flesh and tough, stringy pumpkin, and small chunks of nutmeg and cloves. Rather unpleasant.

*Side note: I like to whisk the mixture that's in the strainer to help it go through quicker.

You have finished your filling. It should be completely smooth, fairly thin, and taste awesome. Open your oven and slide a rack out halfway, putting your crust on it. Pour in as much filling as you can, slide the rack back in the oven, and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until your thermometer* reads 175-180 degrees Fahrenheit when poked into the middle of your pie. Don't worry about making a hole in your pretty pie, it's still fairly liquid at this point and should close up. Take it out of the oven and let the waiting game begin.

Let it cool at room temperature for about 3 hours with no fan blowing on it. This is the hardest part, but it's vital. If you cool it with a fan, you eliminate carryover heat from the oven that will finish cooking the pie, resulting in an unset, goopy pie. If you cool it in the refrigerator, same deal. If you really want to cool the pie faster, I would suggest waiting until your thermometer reads about 185-190 degrees Fahrenheit and cooling it with a fan (not the refrigerator). Quite honestly, I'm speaking from experience. I tried to cool this pie with my fan and it seemed to work well, but it never fully set. It wasn't unmanageably liquid, but it was certainly not firm enough to maintain all integrity while serving, which is why there's no picture of a single piece of pie on a dessert plate. Oh well. Can't do everything right. It still tasted amazing. A great blend of warm spices and pumpkin flavor, I ate way too much of it due to lack of self control. I brought it to Kentucky with my rock climbing buddies (4 people total) and we ate half when we arrived Saturday night. I ate the rest for breakfast. It was that good.

*Side notes on thermometers:
You should absolutely have a digital thermometer for testing food temperatures in your kitchen. If you don't have one, go buy one right now. They are far more accurate than bi-metal coil thermometers and are much less likely to slip out of true temperature readings.
You should also definitely have a thermometer (at least one) in your oven. Don't ever trust your oven's setting to be the correct temperature, it almost never is (especially if you are using an older oven). Mine consistently runs hot by 50-75 degrees Fahrenheit. Needless to say, that's significant enough to accidentally burn everything you try to make. This thermometer doesn't HAVE to be digital. If it isn't, you can calibrate it to about 212 degrees in boiling water. You don't need to be 100% exact because, frankly, you're likely to read a thermometer like that with 5-10 degrees of error anyways. As long as you're close, you should be alright.

I'd like to extend huge thanks to www.smittenkitchen.com, www.pickyourown.org, and Alton Brown for being awesome sources of information. Thanks to my climbing friends who prevented me from eating the whole pie by myself.
An extra special and enormous thanks to my good friend the Spiderpig (http://bethespiderpig.blogspot.com/) for getting me a new camera as an early Christmas/birthday present for the sake of better looking food.

Thanks for reading!