Large bowl
Small sieve
Measuring spoons, jug & scales
Spoon & fork
Small sharp knife
Rolling Pin
Pastry brush
Cling film, tin foil & greaseproof paper
Baking beads
7" tart/quiche tin (I use one with little holes as they apparently help the pastry to cook better)
Leaf cookie cutter
For the pastry (see note 1)
If you're making your own pumpkin purée, then do this first before starting the other steps so it has time to cool.
Make the pastry
Cut the butter (125g) into cubes. Put the flour, caster sugar and butter into a large bowl and rub together with you fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Lightly beat one of the eggs and add it to the bowl. Mix to combine and then bring the mixture together with your hands.
Roll out the pastry to about the thickness of a £1 coin (c.3mm) and line your tart tin with the pastry, trim off any excess and put to one side to make the decorative leaves. Prick the bottom and sides of the pastry with a fork. Cover with clingfilm and put into the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes.
Blind bake the pastry
Heat your oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan.
Place a sheet of greaseproof paper inside the pastry crust and add some baking beads (or dry rice or beans if you don't have any baking beads). Take a little care to ensure that the beans go right to the bottom edges.
Bake the pastry for 10 minutes, remove from the oven and carefully lift out the greaseproof paper and beads and bake for a further 10 minutes until the crust is light brown in colour.
While the pastry crust is cooking, roll out the excess pastry you saved earlier and use a cutter to cut out leaf shapes (if you don't have a cutter then you can cut them with a sharp knife). Place them onto a baking sheet, brush in a little milk (to help give them a nice colour) and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.
While the crust is cooking, make your pumpkin pie filling
Put the pumpkin purée (200g), light brown sugar (80g), cornflour (1 tsp - sift this in to avoid any lumps), double cream (100ml), 1 egg, spices (1 tsp ground cinnamon, ½ tsp ground ginger, pinch of ground cloves, pinch of ground nutmeg) and a pinch of salt into a large bowl and whisk to combine.
Get some tin foil and form it into a circle the same size as the tart tin (if you wrap this around the tin it'll stop the top edge of the pastry over-cooking).
Once the pie crust has finished blind baking, remove it from the oven and reduce the heat to 180ºC/160ºC fan. Pour this filling into the pie crust. Place the tin foil ring around the tart tin (carefully!) and bake for 25-30 minutes until the edges are set but the middle still wobbles. If you see the top start to puff up then take that as a sign that it's time to turn the heat off.
Once you've reached that stage, turn off the oven but leave the pie in and open the door a little to let out some of the heat (cooling the pie slowly this way ensures that it sets fully without overcooking).
Once cooled, decorate with pastry leaves and serve.
Serving: 1slice | Calories: 378kcal | Carbohydrates: 40.9g | Protein: 5.5g | Fat: 20.9g | Saturated Fat: 12.5g | Sodium: 40mg | Fiber: 1.6g | Sugar: 16.3g
Any nutritional information provided is the estimated nutritional information per serving. Please refer to my guide to Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen nutritional information if you would like to learn more about how this is calculated.
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Author: Charlotte Oates