Week 2 - Pumpkin Pie

Well - Two weeks down.  Fifty to go...
Just to clarify - I made the cheesecake on Wednesday but created the blog yesterday.  So I don't want ANYONE to think I made a cheesecake on Saturday and a pumpkin pie on Sunday.  That was not the case!

So...this weekend was quite the baking adventure! I have made pumpkin pie before but with pillsbury crust and the Libby's recipe on the back of the pumpkin puree...I stepped it up a bit with this recipe.

I planned to make Pumpkin Pie with Ginger crust.  A crust from scratch. I have never done that before and I now know why people buy crust.  Making your own is tough. I once heard that it took someone 20 years to perfect their pie crust. I figured I had better get started......

So the recipe. My stepdad, Tom gave me a cookbook a couple of holidays ago called the Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and it is dense.  Rose, impressively gives step by step directions on EVERYTHING.  She is a wealth of baking knowledge and she writes very well.  I have to remember to read her words carefully so as not to miss any of the important advice.....So her Basic Flaky Pie Crust was tough. I had to freeze and refrigerate various ingredients for the crust prior to making it so everything was cold when it went into the food processor.  Then I put it all together in my NEW Cuisinart, a Christmas present from my stepmother, Lanie who is a walking advertisement for the brand.  Everyone should have one! I agree Lanie....- thank you again!

The dough had to refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight. Well, I talked myself out of making the entire pie yesterday and chose overnight! Today, I picked back up with rolling.  I made so many mistakes in Rose's detailed directions that it isn't even worth it to list them all! But I didn't have to start over!

The recipe had an interesting twist that I loved.  I food processed four gingersnap cookies (didn't know what those were prior to yesterday) with pecans and put that on the bottom of my pie crust before pouring the pumpkin mix in! It smelled great and tasted awesome too...

The pumpkin mixture required cooking which was awesome.  And I added cloves to the recipe only because i love the way they smell. 

Here is her recipe if you want to try it: http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/2005/11/great_pumpkin_pie_1.html

My pie came out great - I love pumpkin pie and the crust was awesome! Mike liked it too!!!

*The gingersnap is the thin layer at the bottom of the pie...
Good things in this week's efforts: I had those crust guards that stop the crust from burning.  Those work great! i am going to use them all the time....I also used a pan under my  pie plate when cooking which was a good pickup from last week! The crust was worth the time and effort.  One of the goals for this year is to log one year of my 20 in getting my crust perfect! I am going to try to make homemade crust as often as possible....

Suggestions for next time: I might bake the pie another 5 minutes or so. It was still a little wetter than I would have liked although the crevasse on the pie is an indication of overbaking??? Not sure.  I may have not have enough batter too...I tasted it! Better to be patient!  I do think, also, I should have baked it on the bottom of the oven.  The recipe recommends a baking stone, which I don't have.  But I might have to get one.  Lastly, those pie crust sheets that show you when you have rolled to the right size probably would make life easier than my silly tape measure! I didn't take a picture of that...such an engineer...

Not sure what I am going to make next week...My brother is coming so I might let him choose.  Otherwise, a cream pie, like banana cream or coconut cream sounds interesting. I have never made any of those. Any suggestions???