Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Impress your friends and family and make your pumpkin pie at home this Fall.

It’s Fall, which means it’s time to break out the Fall season ingredients aka pumpkin and pumpkin spice. If you’re like me and just getting into cooking and baking palatable meals, you will love this. Great Aunt Liz has been baking this pie and refining her recipe and tips for decades. Skip the trial and error and take her expert opinion!

Aunt Liz is well known for her pie-making skills, for good reason. Her simple if not detailed pumpkin pie recipe is now in its third generation of being baked in the Gibson family. Now we are sharing it with you <3

Words of Wisdom from Aunt Liz

“I have found that the perfect crust around the edges doesn’t make a better pie.”

(So don’t worry about it being perfect).

Ingredients

* Makes 2 pies

Nutmeg
Clover
Ginger
Cinnamon
Pumpkin spice
Vanilla Extract
Sugar (1/2 cup)
Brown sugar (1/2 cup)
Lochmead Farms whipping cream or half-and-half (17oz)
Milk (2oz)
Salt (1 teaspoon)
Eggs (4)
All-purpose flour (2 & 1/2 cups)
Crisco (1 & 1/2 cups)
Cold salted butter (1/2 stick)
Vodka (1 cup)
Pumpkin puree (two 15oz cans or one 29oz) (to make your puree yourself follow instructions like this homemade pumpkin puree)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
To your mixer, add your pumpkin puree, spices, vanilla, sugar, whipping cream, and milk. Mix slowly.
Next, add your eggs. Mix slowly.
For your dough begin with your flour in a bowl. Slowly add your Crisco bit by bit and combine as you go. It’s better to have too much Crisco than not enough – you can always add more flour to balance.
Use a cheese grater to add your cold butter, mixing as you go. A little over 1/2 stick also wouldn’t hurt.
Get your cup of vodka and put some ice cubes in to chill it. Then slowly mix in the vodka without letting the ice cubes fall into the dough. (Don’t worry, the alcohol will be cooked off.)
Form your dough into a ball and wrap it in wax paper. Your dough should be cool to the touch. It shouldn’t be crumbly, but not moist either. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes.
Use a rolling pin to roll your dough out into a circle about 11-12 inches in diameter. Do not push too hard, use a marble roller if you have one.
Place dough into your 9-inch baking dish and use a fork to poke some holes into the bottom. Stretch or form your edges to not overflow over the top or sit too low in your dish.
Now pour in your pumpkin mixture.
Fold some foil over your crust edges to help it crip and not fall in on itself.
Bake at 425 for 20 minutes then lower the temperature to 375 and bake for another 45 minutes, checking every so often by using a toothpick. Poke it into the center of the pie and if it comes out clean, the pie is done. Carefully remove the foil after the first 20 minutes.
Once the toothpick comes out clean, turn off the oven and let your pie sit inside for 5 minutes. Then take it out and let it cook for at least 30 minutes or else your whipped cream will melt on top.
In the meantime, take your Lochmead whipping cream and add a ratio of 1:1 & 1/2 whipping cream to sugar. Whip that up until it is light and fluffy and plop it onto your pie slices.

Tips

Whipping cream or half-and-half instead of milk makes for a creamier and thicker pumpkin mixture. However, less sugar is needed when this substitute is made as whipping cream is already sweet.
Using a cheese grater to add your butter will help get an even distribution throughout the dough and lessen the amount of cutting and mixing.
You want your dough to remain at a cool temperature so limit how much contact it has with your warm skin.
Use vodka instead of water to enhance the flavors.
A cool temperature is the reason for the iced vodka as well.
Add some foil over the edges of your dough once it is ready to go in the oven. This will help keep them from collapsing as it is a delicate and crumbly dough. Remove after the first 20 minutes.