Food

Pumpkin Pie: the recipe of the Halloween pie

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Written by EFW Staff

The American pumpkin pie: history and recipe

The Halloween night is coming! In addition to candies and sweets, this is the right occasion to try the recipe of the pumpkin pie, the famous and evergreen American cake.
In United States, it’s not Halloween without this delicious dessert, unavoidable during the Thanksgiving Day as well.

Well appreciated by the Americans, this cake hold, in a crispy shortcrust pastry case, a soft pumpkin heart sweetened by spices and sugar. To complete it, don’t miss a bit of whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon.

The history of the American pumpkin pie and the Thanksgiving Day

Food Network Kitchen's Vegan Pumpkin Pie For Vegan and Vegetarian Thanksgiving as seen on Food Network

Food Network Kitchen’s Vegan Pumpkin Pie For Vegan and Vegetarian Thanksgiving as seen on Food Network

The luck of this vegetable is strictly connected to the American history and the Thanksgiving day, celebrated the third Wednesday of November. The story tells that the Thanksgiving day was born to celebrate an important historical event, which has the pumpkin as main character.
Year 1621, in the lands of New England, inhabited by colonists in small villages, the cold is putting the population to the test, causing deaths and illnesses. To help the villages in difficulties, the natives gave to the colonists some of their cultivated food, mainly pumpkins.

In this way the English colonists knew the pumpkin, starting to invent recipes and use it in their daily diet, in sweet and spicy recipes.

The original recipe of the pumpkin pie

The first recipe of the pumpkin pie, which foresees a butter French pastry case and a soft filling, is ascribing to the French chef La Varenne, who in 1651 includes it in the recipe book, that went down in the history of the French and world cuisine. The introduction of the shortcrust pastry is given to the American Amelia Simmons, who substituted the French pastry and enriched the list of ingredients for the filling enclosing, cream, eggs, molasses and spices.

The today’s recipe of pumpkin pie

pumpkin-pie

Nowadays, the recipe hasn’t changed a lot from the original one and it won’t leave you disappointed.

Any advice for an extraordinary pumpkin pie?
• Prepare your mix of spices: balance ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, as you like, in order to stand out the tastes
• Pumpkin is really sweet itself, thus do not exaggerate with sugar, preferring brown sugar, if you like it use Muscovado.
• Cook the pie in high temperature, the dough is really humid and it needs to dry to became solid.
• Serve it with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, do not forget it!
Ingredients for the pumpkin pie
1 roll of shortcrust pastry
2 cups of pumpkin boiled and smashed
1 cup of cream
2 eggs and a yolk
½ cup of brown sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
a mix of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom
the peel of a half lemon

Beat the eggs with sugar, salt, lemon peel and the spices. Then mix with the pumpkin and the cream, blending properly.
Spread the pastry on a baking pan of 22cm diameter, fill, level and bake. Cook for 15 minutes at 220° and then for 45 minutes at 180°. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream and a dusting of cinnamon.

About the author

EFW Staff