In 23 years of Thanksgivings, I have enjoyed many-a-pumpkin pie. It is absolutely one of my favorite treats of this season.
I have come to realize there are several fairly standard pumpkin pie recipes, between which there isn't much variation. People usually sit down to a slice expecting a fairly standard set of flavors and are generally happy with the results, considering it is difficult to
really mess up a pumpkin pie. However, me being me, I'm always looking for a pumpkin pie with novelty.
Who better to look to for an excellent pumpkin pie than the butter-pushing, French-taught, perfectionist of American home-cooking Julia Child? Mom's rediscovery of Julia Child (since the Julie & Julia movie) has led to our household amassing several of her cookbooks.
The cookbook for this recipe is
The Way to Cook by Julia Child, (click
here to buy it on Amazon.com) which I bought for my mom last Christmas. She calls the recipe
"A Fluffy Pumpkin Pie."
Mom and I set out on Tuesday morning to make three pies and actually ended up with enough mixture to make five. Of course my cousin who would typically eat a pie to himself is on an egg-free diet! Pumpkin pie for breakfast with coffee, delivering pies to neighbors, and as I fly back to school today, there's still one left for my parents to enjoy.
So, word to the wise, the following recipe made either one deep-dish pie or two thinner smaller pies, whichever you prefer to bake is your decision, but now you know. The secrets Julia didn't disclose.
Our take on it is as follows:
1. Prepare a chilled crust, I won't get into that because people do crusts differently. We made ours from another recipe my mom always makes. Preheat the oven to 450*.
2. Combine in a large mixing bowl the following dry ingredients:
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 tsp each: cinnamon and ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp each: nutmeg and ground cloves
3. In a food processor (I was raised on a Cuisinart) mix the wet ingredients:
- 3 1/2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin (a negligible amount less than 2 cans pumpkin)
- 3 Tbs molasses (we had dark, she recommended light)
- 3 Tbs bourbon whiskey (there it is, the novel ingredient)
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3/4 cup milk
4. Separate 4 eggs, adding the yolks to the wet ingredients mixture and keeping the whites in another large mixing bowl.
5. Whip the whites into stiff peaks with a mixer. The trick is starting at a lower speed and working your way up. The whites should eventually hold their form like shaving cream.
6. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the food processor and mix.
7. Add 1/4 of the egg whites to the pie ingredients in the food processor and mix a few times. The egg whites should be whipped to the point where separating a 1/4 pie slice is easy and there is no liquid or dripping.
8. Fold the remaining egg whites into the pie ingredients, either in the food processor or the mixing bowl.
9. Pour the mixture into the pie crust and put it in the oven for 15 minutes (still at 450*).
10. When the rim of the crust colors lightly, reduce heat to 375* and bake 15 more minutes. (adjust to lower heat if browning too quickly)
11. Lower heat to 350* and bake another 15 minutes or until you're so impatient that you begin the toothpick test (insert a toothpick, when you remove it clean, the pie has finished baking). If you made it 15 minutes, then do the toothpick test.
12. Turn off the oven, leave the door slightly ajar for 20-30 minutes to allow the pie to finish and cool. Tah-dah!
On the bourbon: Last year we tried dark rum (both are suggested by Julia) but have decided that the bourbon whiskey is far superior. Definitely our new secret ingredient.
On the whipped cream: We used a hand mixer to make the whipped cream from heavy whipping cream on Thanksgiving, yet found ourselves without one of the two removable beaters last night for my early birthday dinner (why make cake when you have five pumpkin pies?) and yes, hand-whipped the cream with a whisk, passing it around the table. It took four of us taking turns
and very important, a chilled bowl to mix it in.
On the recipe, five pies later: We still like it and will likely adopt it as our go-to pumpkin pie, until we get restless enough to try something like a pumpkin flan, which I did see a recipe for floating around. Until then...
