I make no secret of the fact that I’m a summer girl and the fact it’s getting cold and the leaves are falling off the trees now doesn’t spark joy. The one thing I love about autumn though, is that fact that it’s pumpkin season and pumpkin season reminds me of growing up on army bases and all the yummy pumpkin based treats the American kids used to bring in to school. Pumpkin pie was probably my favourite of them all.
Don’t let the pumpkin element put you off, if you like cinnamon and nutmeg, you’ll like it. You can taste the pumpkin in a pumpkin pie as much as you can taste carrot in a carrot cake. When it comes to making a pumpkin pie, I’m the laziest chick you’ll ever meet, so you certainly won’t find me hollowing out pumpkins and rolling out my own pastry any time soon. So when I’ve made multiple pumpkin pies for my friends and family this autumn, I’ve been taking the easy road; work smarter not harder right? If you want to make a super easy pumpkin pie, and aren’t too precious about the fact it hasn’t been made from scratch, this is the recipe for you
Ingredients (makes 2 pies)
- 1 can of tinned pumpkin
- 2 x ready made sweet pastry case
- 140g brown sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 eggs
- 25g butter, melted
- 175ml milk
Recipe:
- Preheat oven at 200 degrees
- Put all ingredients bar the pastry case (obviously) into a bowl and mix together until smooth
- Split the mixture evenly into the two pastry cases (If you don’t want to make 2 pies at a time, the mixture is freezable if you wanted to put half of it in a Tupperware box and save for another time.)
- Bake for 10 minutes at 200 degrees, then reduce heat to 160 degrees and cook for a further 25-35 minutes (depending of how hot your oven gets)
- To check it’s done, lightly tap the top of the pie to see if it’s set, it should feel firm
- Let to cool and serve with fresh double cream
And that’s literally it! It’s one of those really easy ‘hoy everything in a bowl and bake’ recipes and the results taste pretty authentic if I do say so myself!
I’ve kind of rediscovered my love of baking in lockdown and to save me and Dave from eating a million pumpkin pies and becoming the size of a house, we decided it would be nice to make some pies to take round to some friends and family, after all, who doesn’t love a pie doorstep delivery? Plus there’s the added bonus that the recipe makes two pies at a time so 3 cans of pumpkin gives you a pretty nice yield.
We had loads of fun last weekend making our deliveries, it was lovely to see our friends and family even if it was just for a 5 minute chat on their doorstep, and for people like my friend Steph who’d never had pumpkin pie before, an opportunity for her to try something new!
