last updated 14 July 1999 08:16 PM
copyright 1996
last updated 14 July 1999 08:16 PM
hits since 14 July, 1999 08:02 PM
The best pumpkins for pie are the sugar-pie pumpkins which yield fruit weighing four to ten pounds. Seed catalog companies [1] will make claims that other varieties such as jack-o-lantern pumpkins and "lumina" or "ghost" pumpkins make good pie. Do not believe them. Pie pumpkin flesh is more orange and sweeter than jack-o-lantern pumpkin flesh, and the smaller pie pumpkin will more easily yield it's flesh to you than a jack-o-lantern pumpkin will. I once tried baking a "lumina" or "ghost" pumpkin and it was definitely not pie-worthy. It's flesh was yellow and stringy and hard to work with. It made a passable soup.
Pumpkins like sun, water and lots of fertilizer, preferably something decaying. Mid-April is a good time to plant. Dig a hole about one and one half feet deep and line the hole with 1/2 inch (or smaller) chicken wire to protect the pumpkin roots from gophers.
Fill the hole with lots of compost and soil to make a mound 8 inches high. Plant about 6 seeds about one inch deep. Seeds will sprout after about ten days. Surround the mound with a paperboard "wall" made from cardboard cereal boxes to protect the seedlings from slugs. Place dishes of beer outside the wall as this will trap and kill slugs. Also, at night with a flashlight, slugs can be hunted down and killed. You should also be wary of snails. The seedlings need to be protected from slugs until there is about 4 or so leaves on the seedlings. Choose the one or two strongest seedlings in each mound.
Place wooden boards underneath the maturing fruit to avoid the fruit from rotting on the vine. After the fruits turn orange and the leaves and vine begin to die, harvest the pumpkins. This is typically in late September or early October. Cut the stem with a sharp knife, leaving several inches on the pumpkin. The fruit should dry in the sun for a couple of days and then placed in a dry dark and well-ventilated place to harden the skin. After this the pumpkins should keep for several months as long as the stem or skin is not broken.
The ingredients for the crust are shown in below.
Mix dry ingredients. Mix in melted butter. With a spoon or fork press into pie tin. Makes 2 pie crusts, using 8.75 inch diameter pie tins.
With a sharp knife open the pumpkin up near the stem and empty the inside of the pumpkin, including all seeds and all stringy stuff. If you leave stringy stuff in the pumpkin, it will end up in the pie. A few pumpkin strings in your pie is unavoidable. If you like, you can save some of the seeds for next years pumpkin crop. Wash the remaining seeds and place them on a cookie sheet. Lightly salt the seeds and place in an oven (preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake for 10-15 minutes or until browned. Eat the seed. Put the lid back on the pumpkin and bake for about an hour or an hour and a half. It's okay if the skin of the pumpkin gets a little scorched. Take the pumpkin out of the oven, take off the lid, and then scoop out the flesh with a large spoon. Mush up the pumpkin flesh with a potato masher or something. Compost the skin for next years crop of pumpkins. If you are gutting a pie pumpkin the pumpkin will yield its flesh easily and the skin will be easy to remove.
The figure indicates how much a pumpkin puree a pumpkin(s) of a certain weight will produce. As we will see ahead, around two cups of pumpkin puree is needed for one pumpkin pie. About one cup of pumpkin puree is produced for every pound of pre-gutted pumpkin.
Figure 1: Pumpkin puree produced as a function of pumpkin
weight.
The points marked by crosses indicate puree produced by the method of baking
the pumpkin.
The
points marked by boxes indicate the method of boiling the pumpkin. You may
try boiling your pumpkin, but after trying both, I think baking it is better.
Some of the data points corresponding to larger weights belong to larger
"jack-o-lantern" pumpkins. Again, smaller pie pumpkins (4-10 pounds)
are better for making pies than the larger pumpkins.
The ingredients for the pie filling are shown in below.
The particular brands of bourbon that I have used in the past are Wild Turkey and Old Crow.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix ingredients in a separate bowl, adding the bourbon last. Fills two 8.75 inch diameter pie crusts. Bake for about one hour at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. The pie is baked when a toothpick comes out of the pie cleanly after being poked into the pie roughly 5 inches from the center. The pie must cool. Eat the pie.