Homemade Pumpkin Pie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Can you use regular pumpkins to make pie? ›

You may use all sorts of pumpkins and squashes (a Cucurbita moschata or Cucurbita pepo may be called either, depending on variety) to make a pie. The Halloween types may not be the best choice: they tend to be stringy, not very sweet, and sometimes over treated with pesticides.

Store-bought pumpkin pie mix (sometimes labeled "pumpkin pie filling") is a shortcut for making homemade pumpkin pie. It contains puréed pumpkin plus added spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. It also contains sugar and other chemical additives.

Pumpkin pie is a great make-ahead dessert to cross off your Thanksgiving to-do list. You can prepare and bake the pie up to two days in advance, and it will still taste great on the big day. Just make sure you store the pie in the refrigerator—not on the kitchen counter—until you are ready to serve it.

Too many pumpkin pies have soggy crusts that never fully brown. To avoid this, recipes often call for blind baking your crust. That is, baking the empty crust before the filling is added. This gives the crust time to firm up and brown, time it typically doesn't get if the faster cooking filling is added first.

Of course you can also use it to make a delicious pumpkin pie! Family members that enjoy sweet potato fries will likely be excited to try the pumpkin version.

The pumpkins we eat, often labeled pie or sweet pumpkins, are smaller and less watery than the ones used for decorating. Heritage varieties that are good for cooking include Baby Pam, Autumn Gold, Fairytale and Cinderella pumpkins.

Yes, canned pumpkin can be labeled as 100% pure pumpkin or just as pumpkin puree. They are the same product. Both canned pumpkin puree and pie filling are useful, shelf-stable ingredients that can help speed up your kitchen prep time. Just remember that puree is unsweetened, while pie filling contains sugar and spices.

Although they both come in cans and the packaging looks almost identical, they can't be used interchangeably. Pumpkin puree doesn't have anything added to it, but pumpkin pie filling comes with pumpkin spice and sugar already mixed in.

Often, blind-baking solves this problem. If you're making a single crust custard-filled pie, like a pumpkin pie, bake the pie dough first before adding filling to allow some of the moisture in the crust to evaporate. You can also totally blind-bake fruit pies.

Why are store bought pumpkin pie not refrigerated? ›

Why Are Store-Bought Pies Not Refrigerated? So that brings many of us to the question: Why are the pumpkin pies at the grocery store sitting out? Store-bought pumpkin pies include shelf-stable ingredients such as preservatives which allow them to last longer, even at room temp.

Line the crust with foil, parchment, or a paper coffee filter. Fill it about two-thirds full with dried beans, uncooked rice (or other uncooked grain berries), pie weights, or granulated sugar. Bake the crust in a preheated 375°F oven for 20 minutes, set on a baking stone or steel if you have one.

You do not need to pre-bake a pie crust for an apple pie or any baked fruit pie really, but we do freeze the dough to help it stay put. Pre-baking the pie crust is only required when making a custard pie OR when making a fresh fruit pie. you should probably get: Pie weights are super helpful to have for pre-baking.

If your recipe doesn't have instructions and you're wondering how long to pre bake the pie, here's what I do: I pre bake the prepped pie crust at 350°F. If the crust is homemade from scratch, I pre bake for 35 minutes. If the crust is store-bought, I pre bake for 30 minutes.

Start with the right variety of pumpkins, sugar pumpkins. Large pumpkins that we traditionally think of as jack-o-lanterns aren't ideal for pie as they are very stringy and have a lot of seeds. There really isn't very much “meat” to the larger pumpkins. Sugar pumpkins, also known as pie pumpkins, are sweeter.

There are multiple different varieties of pumpkin. Although the hybrid variety Jack-O-Lantern is great for carving, they are not ideal for baking. There are other varieties, typically labeled pie or sugar pumpkins in stores, that will are easier to bake with due to having less stringy pulp.

Yes! No matter the type of pumpkin, make sure to reserve the seeds. Give them a rinse, toss them with some oil, salt, pepper, and whatever spice strikes your fancy, and toss them in the oven for a snack that will ready before your jack-o-lanterns are lit!

Is Pumpkin Puree the Same as Pure Pumpkin? Yes, canned pumpkin can be labeled as 100% pure pumpkin or just as pumpkin puree. They are the same product. Both canned pumpkin puree and pie filling are useful, shelf-stable ingredients that can help speed up your kitchen prep time.