Pumpkin 3.14159

 

Hello Sugar Lovers!

So guess what guys…..I finally faced my fear of making pie crust! I’m glad I finally did it because it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it would be. It wasn’t the prettiest pie ever but hey, It ended up looking like a pie so I’m good with that.

So if your brave enough come and join me and we can make some pie magic together. Now my grandma actually gave me the recipes for both the filling and the crust so thanks to her because I wouldn’t know the first thing to do. Now I will share these top secret recipes with you but we have to keep it between us ok?

Ingredients (Pie Crust)

• 5 cups of flour
• 1 egg
• 1 lb lard (crisco)
• 1 TBSP vinegar
• Water
• (I also chose to use a foil pie pan)

Ingredients (Pumpkin Filling)

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 can pumpkin (398 ml) 2cups pretty much works out to that amount
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 TSP cinnamon
• 1/2 TSP nutmeg
• 1/4 TSP ground ginger
• 1/4 TSP salt
• 3/4 cup evaporated milk

*You will also need some whipped cream and a piping bag with a star tip*

First thing we have to make is the crust….obviously. This part I was a little confused on until my grandma explained it to me. So your going to take a 1 cup measuring cup and your going to add your egg and vinegar into the cup. Beat that together and then fill the rest of the cup up with water. How could I have not figured that out do you ask? …I have no idea apparently it was to strange a concept for me. So this was the first step and I was already messing things up so at this point my hopes were not high.

Next your going to add your flour and lard into a mixing bowl. Your going to mix this until its crumbly and add a dash of salt. Then take your egg mixture from the measuring cup and pour that in with the flour mixture. Your going to combine that until you have a dough like consistency (it will be a bit more flaky and crumbly then bread dough). One thing I have never understood is why things always seem to need a pinch of salt? I’m sure its for a specific reason but I still haven’t figured it out. Now this recipe makes up to 5 shells. I only used one so I froze the rest of the dough.

Now we are going to take the dough out of the bowl and use our hands to kneed it a little bit. Don’t kneed the life out of it just enough to make it more manageable to work with. I did use a little flour on the counter top and a bit on my rolling pin so it would keep it from sticking to much. First though your going to split up the dough so that you have a smaller piece to work with. Now you can freeze the rest by breaking it up into a few sections. I split my extra dough into 2 sections and wrapped it in plastic wrap then put it in the freezer. That being said I’m not sure plastic wrap was my best choice. I think a freezer bag would be better but …I didn’t have any of those so I did my best!

 

What you going to want to do now is roll out the dough. A good way to measure how much you have to roll it out is to roll it out to what you think is a good size and then place your foil pan on top to see if it reaches the ends. Account a bit more for the dip in the foil pan as well as a bit extra to make a nice design along the sides. Once you think you have enough rolled out you can pick it up gently and place it in the pan. You can use your rolling pin to help you put it into the pan. All you have to do is almost roll the dough backwards onto your rolling pin, holding it in place you just roll it over the pan. Now afterward I noticed that I didn’t roll the dough out enough because it was a bit thick at the bottom so just be aware of that. If you are like me you can just play it safe the first time….the playing it safe club….we have t-shirts. Once your done playing it safe you can go around the edges and make them look prettier. I think some people use a fork, you can use the tong parts of the fork to press down gently. I just did small pinches around to make a different look. Also….I remembered after that I could have used a fork…learn from my mistakes fellow bakers. Moving on!

 

Time for some pumpkin filling, first off is to preheat the oven to 400 degrees. The next step is easy, you just take all the filling ingredients and your drop them in a mixing bowl. I like recipes like that they make me feel so much better in about baking skills. I didn’t have any ground ginger so I decided to just keep that out. Once its all combined you can pour it into the pie. You most likely will have a bit more than one pie worth of filling, I don’t think mine was enough to make another pie though. That part of you brain that doesn’t want to be wasteful will tell you to try and put as much as you can in that one pie. Don’t listen to it because then you will mess your pie up and have to start all over again…believe me you don’t want that.

 

After you’ve done that you can put it into the oven for 15 minutes. Then you can reduce the heat to 350 degrees for 30- 35 minutes. Now,do I have a story for you, I know what your thinking. How could you possibly have messed up putting the pie in the oven Ashley? Well let me tell you a tale. So I put the pie in the oven for 15 minutes thinking it would be done after that. Why did I think this? Because I didn’t read the whole recipe! Make a note of this people, be smarter than me and actually read the ENTIRE recipe ok? Eventually I put the pieces together. It only took me 20 minutes and a lot of swearing.You will know when your pie is done when you stick a toothpick in the pie and the toothpick comes out clean.

 

Make sure to let your pie cool before you decorate. I didn’t make my own whip cream, can’t get to crazy with this “making it from scratch” business. I’m lucky the pie worked out I don’t need to be messing around with whip cream too. So Cool Whip it is! Your going to take your piping bag and put the Cool Whip inside then your going to pipe some small drops of icing going all the way around the pie. I put 2 rows along the border and I also put a bit in the middle. Then you can sprinkle some cinnamon on top. After that your done!

 

I want to thank my grandma so much for giving me so many recipes and giving me permission to share them with all of you. Thanks for hanging out with me on this one guys. It was fun to make and I hope you guys enjoy trying it yourselves. Leave me a comment if there is anything you would like me to try and make….key work “try”.

Happy Baking Everyone!

 

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Baker