Recipe
- 1 cup of pumpkin pureé
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 12 oz (1 can) evaporated milk
- 2 large eggs
- Frozen Trader Joe’s Pie Crust
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Allow the frozen pie crust to defrost for about an hour—do not try to unwrap it from the plastic earlier, as I did, as it will break and require you to re-roll out the dough yourself. I rolled out the crust till it looked about right—9 inches in diameter and 1/8th of an inch thick—but didn’t measure it exactly.
Beat the eggs to a somewhat even consistency before measuring the rest of the ingredients and dumping them into a bowl.
Mix using the kitchen utensil of your choice.
Try not to freak out when the addition of evaporated milk completely liquifies the mixture (that’s supposed to happen, apparently).
Lay the pie crust in a metal or glass pan of your choice, making sure the edges spill slightly over. Use a fork or your hands to crimp the edges. It’s all coming together now.
Pour the filling into the crust until it just about reaches the top of the crust. It is entirely possible you have made too much filling for a nine-inch pie, as I did. In that case, do not attempt to fit all of the filling into the crust and cause it to spill onto the edges.
For better results than I got, put aluminum foil around the edges of the crust so it does not burn as the filling bakes.
Bake for 40 minutes to an hour. For the best experience, put on the Great British Bake Off for inspiration and to manifest successful results. To check, stick a knife into the pie, and if it comes back clean, the pie’s finished. At this stage, I witnessed a hump forming in the pie, which quickly became burnt and turned out to be the bottom crust sticking out through the top of the pie. I’m unsure as to why that happened, but do attempt to avoid that situation for a more aesthetically pleasing pie.
Cool at your discretion before cutting slices and digging in. Add whipped cream for a classic embellishment.
Review
Although the giant burnt hump in the middle of my pie was mildly concerning, the rest of the pie held its texture impressively well. The filling was incredibly soft, toeing the line between liquid and solid as a sort of jelly that is characteristic of pumpkin pies.
The crust was slightly doughy and could have likely been rolled out a bit thinner.
The taste, surprisingly, was my biggest disappointment. As an avid consumer of pumpkin-flavored foods, I was struck by the pie’s terrible blandness. Not only could I not smell or taste the cinnamon—although I added half a teaspoon more than the ½ teaspoon recommended by the online recipe I was following—but the nutmeg and ginger were also undetectable.
Overall, the recipe accomplishes what it’s supposed to, but readers should undoubtedly add greater quantities and varieties of spices to cement the seasonal flavor and scent of this classic holiday recipe.