Plus 10 ways to make it better!
Thanksgiving is upon us once again and it’s time for hard truths. Pumpkin pie—that fixture on the Thanksgiving table, is kind of gross. Surveys say pumpkin pie is America’s favorite Thanksgiving dessert. The question is: why? If pumpkin pie is so beloved, why is it only eaten once a year? People love pizza. Not surprisingly, they sometimes eat pizza several times a week. How many foods do you truly love, that you only eat once a year? This is America. We deep fry Twinkies. We are not a paragon of restraint and delayed gratification, patiently waiting for the one day per year we allow ourselves to indulge in our favorite national dessert. No! I think we love the idea of pumpkin pie. It’s a tradition that conjures up feelings of warmth, home and hoped for (but often unrealized) picture perfect holidays gathered around the table with an actual functional family. There’s a reason why, in all of the pumpkin spice flavored madness of the Fall season, no one is grabbing an actual slice of pumpkin pie with their venti Pumpkin Spice latte. Actual pumpkin pie is nobody’s favorite. How can I tell? Try serving someone a slice of pumpkin pie in July. Just tell them you have pie and watch the joyful anticipation drain from their face as you put that pudding-like enigma down in front of them. We like pumpkin’s flavor. We love the spices that go with it. We do not like the pie itself and it comes down to one factor; the texture—it’s gross.
The Texture Problem
The perfect smooth and shiny pumpkin pie is a goal for many home cooks. However, it is just that obsession with a perfect exterior that makes pumpkin pie so vile. That smooth and shiny surface belies an interior texture akin to a slice of watery, spicy pudding that doesn’t know whether it wants to be in a bowl with a spoon or on a plate with a fork. Either way, this particular texture is challenging for many a Thanksgiving dinner guest. So while the apple, pecan and sweet potato pies are scarfed down with nary a crumb remaining, hacks for what to do with leftover pumpkin pie abound. Perhaps a pumpkin pie smoothy?
Pumpkin pie’s closest cousin is the sweet potato pie. However, sweet potato pie is eaten year round. It has the same spicy flavor profile, yet it is enjoyed as much at summer barbecues, as it is at Thanksgiving dinner. Again, the difference is the texture. Sweet potatoes are starchy and dense. This leads to a dense and rich pie, with enough texture to chew, not slurp down like its pumpkin-based doppelgänger. I even saw a recipe in which the secret ingredient in their ultimate pumpkin pie was sweet potato. At least they were being honest about pumpkin pie’s limitations.
The Best of Both Pies
Fortunately for those of you who love the tradition of pumpkin pie, but hate the texture, there are ways to make all things right. You can have your pie and eat it too! A pumpkin pie with the dense richness of a sweet potato pie—yet all the ease of opening a can. A pie that is never rubbery or gelatinous, but pure enjoyment in both flavor and texture. However, it requires breaking away from the recipe on the back of the can and that glossy smooth, Instagram worthy top. If you can do this, you can produce a pumpkin pie that people will actually love to eat anytime of year. Here are my top tips for baking a better pumpkin pie as well as a link to my full recipe in which I’ve done all of the work for you and a link to the video version of that recipe.
10 Tips To Bake a Better Pumpkin Pie
Increase the amount of pumpkin in your pie! According to the recipe on the back of the can, you are to use one 15 oz can of pumpkin puree per pie. The rest of the volume is made up of sugar, canned milk and eggs. The result is the lean, jiggly, custard-like filling that many people dislike. The traditional ratios also mean that the filling needs to be slightly underbaked in order to prevent the eggs from turning tough and rubbery. I have found that doubling the amount of pumpkin used in the pie results in better pumpkin flavor and a thicker more definitive and universally appealing texture to the pie.
Eliminate excess water! Pumpkin is a gourd, like butternut squash. In fact the canned “pumpkin” you buy in the store isn’t pumpkin at all, but a type of squash similar to butternut. Whichever way you slice it, these are watery fruits (they have seeds, so botanically they are fruits). Unfortunately all that water, when combined with eggs and milk and sugar leads to the unpleasant texture of the traditional pumpkin pie. The solution is simple—cook out the water. This is something I learned when I went through the process of making my own genuine pumpkin puree from a true sugar pumpkin. Cooking the puree in a saucepan drives off much of the moisture that ruins the texture of the pie. Cooking also allows you to completely dissolve and meld the sugar and other flavoring ingredients together, leading to a much more developed and well-rounded flavor to the finished pie.
Bring back moisture with flavorful dairy, but not too much! Once you’ve driven out the water you need to add some liquid back to your puree so that your pie, while dense, will not be heavy. Milk and heavy cream smooth out the vegetal flavor of the pumpkin and provide a better mouth feel. This is the same reason why cream of tomato soup taste better than soup without cream. Or why simply adding milk to your canned tomato soup makes it taste so much better than adding plain water. Just don’t add too much liquid or you’ll be back to square one.
Back away from the cloves! Don’t believe the pumpkin spice hype! While everyone loves this prepackaged spice blend that has been added to everything from coffee to Spam, it contains one offensive ingredient that should never be added to pumpkin pie. That offensive ingredient is ground clove. Traditional recipes for pumpkin pie also recommend adding cloves to the mix, but this is a mistake. Cloves are an oral analgesic—like Orajel. Pumpkin pie already suffers from textural challenges, why add mouth numbing, medicinal tasting cloves to its list of woes? There is no reason to use cloves when allspice is a perfect substitute. Allspice has the positive warming flavor profile of cloves without the medicinal mouth numbing aftertaste. I actually substitute allspice for all recipes calling for cloves and have never looked back.
Bloom your spices! While were on the subject of spices, don’t forget to bloom them. Blooming means briefly frying your spices in fat to activate and boost their volatile fragrances and flavors. This technique comes from the spice heavy traditional Indian cuisine. Because blooming boost the flavor of your spices, you can use less of them and avoid having an over-spiced pie that taste medicinal and dusty.
Add Extra Egg Yolks! While the standard pie recipe on that can of pumpkin puree only calls for whole eggs—adding egg yolks will result in a smoother texture to your pie. Tough egg whites are the cause of the pie’s jiggly challenging texture. Egg whites are also prone to overcooking and becoming rubbery. That’s why traditional pumpkin pies are ever so slightly underbaked, relying on unpredictable “carry over” cooking to cook it the rest of the way. Unfortunately, this is how pies can easily end up either rubbery and overcooked or undercooked and soupy. Additional egg yolks increases setting power without the risk of rubberiness that adding more whole eggs would create. So substitute some egg yolks for those whole eggs and the resulting pie will set, but loose the characteristic jiggle many people dislike.
Add a Touch of Rum! Alcohol is never the answer to life’s problems—except when you are trying to make pie out of squash—then it is! Don’t over do it! You’re not making a rum pie. A small amount of dark rum works to counteract the vegetal flavor of the pumpkin and balance the sweetness of the not insignificant amount sugar necessary to turn a watery gourd into a decadent dessert. Adding rum to the pumpkin puree as it cooks eliminates the sharp flavor of alcohol so that all you’re left with is pie with an inexplicable depth and complexity.
Substitute some Dark Brown Sugar! Similar to the rum, dark brown sugar with its deep molasses and caramel notes, brings much needed depth to what can be a bland dessert. Swap out some of the traditional white sugar for dark brown sugar and your pie will look and taste much richer.
Don’t Skip the Vanilla Extract! As shocking as it is, the recipe on the back of the can of pumpkin puree does not call for vanilla. There are very few baked goods that don’t benefit from vanilla extract and pumpkin pie is no exception. No fancy vanilla beans needed here. Their delicate flavor would be lost amongst the spices and rum. Vanilla extract, with it pungent strength, is necessary to turn a squash pie into a fragrant and tempting dessert.
Cook it thoroughly, chill it well! Finally once you’ve implemented the above tips you must go against everything you’ve ever learned about baking a pumpkin pie and bake it until it is set completely! Yes, it will crack. But, because you’ve gotten rid of the moisture in the pumpkin, increased the fat with heavy cream and decreased the amount of egg whites in favor of silky egg yolks—these cracks are purely cosmetic. They actually reflect the fact that even more moisture has left the pie. Once completely chilled for 8 hours, the resulting texture is perfectly dense, without being heavy. It is set without being jiggly or rubbery, just smooth, but with enough texture that you know you are eating a solid piece of pie and not a slice of gross pumpkin pudding.
Follow these tips and banish all slimy jiggle and blandness from your pumpkin pie forever. The next time Thanksgiving rolls around, there won’t be any leftover pumpkin pie for you to try and figure out how to add to your morning smoothy. Try my recipe for “A Better Pumpkin Pie” where I’ve worked out all the ratios and techniques for you. Serve it at your next Thanksgiving and give apple pie a run for its money. Have a happy Thanksgiving and save your gastronomic disappointment for the turkey.🦃
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