Recipe by Elizebett Rocha Bento Eslinger
In my house, a slice of pumpkin pie isn’t just for dessert; it’s also breakfast, an afternoon snack, or a birthday celebration centerpiece. We’ve eaten a lot of pumpkin pie over the years! While seemingly simple, getting the filling set perfectly without a soggy pastry is a delicate balancing act. Blind baking the crust (i.e. cooking the crust for a period of time before adding the filling) helps the crust flake beautifully without overcooking the pumpkin custard.
Substitution note: if you don’t have a 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk, you can replace it with 100 g (about ½ cup) of granulated sugar, 50 g (about ¼ cup packed) brown sugar, and 12 oz (about 1 ½ cups) evaporated milk.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp table salt
- 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
- 15 oz (about 2 cups) canned or pureed pumpkin
- 3 large eggs, beaten (150g or 5.25oz)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
- 1 recipe “All-the-Things Pie Dough” (use one disk for this recipe; use the second disk for decorating the pie or save the second disk for a different recipe)
- 1 egg white, beaten
Directions
- Mix together the flour, salt, and spices in a medium bowl.
- In a large measuring cup (at least 4 cups), whisk together pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, and milk. Add sugar mixture to pumpkin mixture and whisk together. Cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.
- Lightly grease a glass, deep-dish pie plate (1.5” to 2” deep; 9” in diameter). Use a rolling pin to roll out the pie dough into a 13” diameter circle (about 1/8” to 1/16” thick) and transfer to the pie plate. Fold the ends of the crust under and then use well-floured fingers to crimp the edge. Allow to cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
- Adjust oven rack to the middle placement. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove your pie shell from the refrigerator and prepare for “blind baking”: crinkle up a large sheet of parchment paper (to make it much more flexible) and place it in the pie shell. Add baking beans or pie weights and fill up the parchment-lined crust.
- Cook the pie crust for 25-30 minutes so that it is set. Take out the beans, poke the bottom with a fork all over (aka “docking”), and bake for another 3-5 minutes until dried on top (it may look pale).
- Remove from the oven and while it’s still hot, brush the inside bottom and sides of the blind-baked pastry with some of the beaten egg white.
- Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.
- Pour the pumpkin mixture into the pie crust. Bake for 45-55 minutes, until the filling is set around the edges but the center still has a wobble. *Tip: the edges of the pie filling should look cooked and slightly domed; the middle should look “sunken” in comparison to the edges and it should slightly wobble (there should be a 4-inch circle in the middle of what looks like wobbly filling. The internal temperature should be 170-180 degrees, BUT I avoid taking the temperature because I don't want a hole in my pie! So I use visual cues to know when the pie is done. See picture below for a visual example.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a cooling rack to room temperature. Then, cool in the fridge overnight before serving.
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