Pumpkin Pie

I've never made pumpkin pie before, but I'll be trying it this year. I've been looking about on the interweb and thought I'd post a few handy links for the basic recipe and variations on the theme, I'll update and let you know when I've actually tried it. Most of the recipes out there come from the US or Canada, so UK/ROI users will need to convert measurements and oven settings. You can do this via this handy tool on food.com

Basic Recipe: Using fresh pumpkin as opposed to mix or canned, from the good people at Pick Your Own.

You'll might also find it handy to check out this step by step Betty's Kitchen video via YouTube, where the comments section includes plenty of tips and answered queries.





Maple Pecan Pumpkin Pie from the Baking Pan: Uses canned pumpkin, which I haven't seen in the UK, but should be available from specialist stockists. I love the addition of maple and pecan, which lets face it are a match made in food heaven.

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie, Cooks.com: For those chocoholics out there, this recipe adds what you surely feel has been missing all the long...chocolate!!!!!

Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake: For those who aren't pastry lovers, a cheesecake alternative from All Recipes.com, that comes with a high user rating. Bare in mind though that it assumes you have a ready made cheesecake base, so if you're making from scratch you'll have to look up a recipe for that too.

Pumpkin Parkin

This is an adaptation of a Banana Bread recipe that I've used a couple of times and has always gone down really well. It is very simple to make too. If the flesh of your pumpkin is particularly squishy, you could use it neat, but I think that a quick roasting (for about 20 minutes on 200C) with a generous sprinkle of cinnamon, really helps bring out the sweetness of the pumpkin, so I'd advise you do this anyway. Plus you'll need the heat for melting the butter.

Ingredients

• 285g/10oz plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 110g/4oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• 225g/8oz golden caster sugar
• 2 free-range eggs
• flesh of one small/medium pumpkin (aprox 200g), roasted and mashed with about 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• Squeezed juice of half a lemon
• Optional pinch of grated nutmeg

Method

Cream the butter, sugar and still warm pumpkin until melted and runny. If you still have any large or hard lumps of pumpkin, blitz in a food processor or use a had blender to smooth out. You can still have a few smaller lumps in, this won't affect the finished product.

Shift together the flour, bicarb or soda and nutmeg and add a little to the pumpkin/butter mix, then add a little of the beaten egg. Take turns with each until they are all combined. Finally add the lemon juice and stir.

Pour out into a small greased loaf tin and bake in an oven pre-heated to 180C/350F/Gas 4, for about 50 minutes. Should be golden and well risen, use a skewer to check that it is done through. Turn out onto wire rack.

You can icing if you like, an aromatic orange flower water icing goes particularly well, or perhaps even toast up some pumpkin and sunflower seeds, then glaze them onto the cooled loaf using honey or syrup.


Image: Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net