Alison Making Pumpkin Pie

Here's the video I published on YouTube, of me making pumpkin pie.

I've added the transcript below so you can try to understand and even read out loud with the video.

I'm in Newcastle with mum at the moment, so happy halloween from us both!

Pumpkin pie is a big tradition in the USA, made at Thanksgiving and hugely important in American culture.

Here are all the ingredients ready on our kitchen table and the lights are all set up ready to start shooting.

First I want to show you the pumpkins …from my friend’s garden, my lovely friend Kai…So to cook them you slice them like a watermelon you’ll need a big sharp knife for this. Then cut off the skins and chop into big cubes. Boil in a pan of water for about 15/20 minutes until soft then mash them to make a puree.

Now I’m going to show you how to make your own shortcrust pastry. Please don’t buy it at the supermarket with all the packaging and additives.

You need nice cold butter from the fridge cut it into chunks into your bowl…. cold is the key for the best pastry…. then you add the flour and it’s double the quantity of flour to butter: for this crust I used 125g butter and 250g flour.

Then you rub the flour and the butter in together to make a breadcrumb like texture …use your thumbs and your fingers, rubbing from back to front….my mum taught me this …lift it up to incorporate air so the pastry’s lovely and light.

Then you add really cold water from the fridge, about 8 tablespoons, I normally add a bit less and check what the consistency’s like and then I add the last tablespoon if required …which is what I’m going to do now…

…In it goes….then after that you just pull it all together using very light gestures, you hardly touch it at all, you don’t knead it or work it like bread dough. Keep it nice and cold and that gives you the best light crumbly pastry.

ROLLING OUT

So I’m going to roll out the pastry now, sprinkle a little flour on your board and make a nice round patty shape, with the pastry. Sprinkle some more flour on top so nothing sticks to the rolling pin. Shape the edges together so they don’t go frilly when you start rolling out….Keep lifting the pastry so it doesn’t stick….keep turning and lifting in-between rolling..add a little flour when necessary…now my tart dish is quite big so I’m rolling over the edge of my board here…to finish trim the edges There we are! one shortcrust pastry case! you can use for any sort of tart or pie. I’m going to blind bake the pastry case beforehand, to make sure that the pastry is cooked on the bottom.

…you line it with baking paper and pour in pie weights to weigh down the pastry as it cooks. I’m using red lentils…Bake for 15 minutes at 180°C.

1. While it’s baking I’m going to prepare the filling. First the pumpkin I cooked earlier goes into my nice glass bowl: 420g what a lovely colour! it looks lovely. Then I add the creme fraiche, full fat of course! 180ml and then we add 120ml of fresh cream? I’m enjoying myself pouring that over the back of the spoon and I love the little blue jug …it came from Spain we can just pop over the Pyrenees and get the nice terracotta kitchenware.. I love that. Next add the sugar.. about 60g…a little less than the recipe says..but you can decide how much you’d like…Then the two whole eggs go in then afterwards you need an extra egg yolk, so I’m going to separate them out before your very eyes….. The eggs are from our friend and neighbour Vincent Petroix.

Ok give it a good mix around with your spoon, it looks very good and as you can see its very liquid so it was quite right to blind bake the pastry first to make sure it wasn’t soggy on the bottom. Now I’m going to put in the traditional flavouring of pumpkin pie which is cinnamon, a heaped teaspoon…. in it goes…. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla essence. The spices are supplied by Epice M in Igon they have a wide range of herbs and spices and teas …. Stir it all in well.

So now we just pour it into the pastry case as you can see the pastry is already golden after being blind baked…in goes the mixture. To garnish I’m simply going to put a few walnuts on the top. I happen to have a lot of walnuts because we’ve got trees in the garden. You could garnish with any sort of nuts or raisins perhaps.

Ready to go in the oven for 30 minutes at 180°C

…And here’s the result…I’ve let it cool down for an hour and we’re serving it with homemade vanilla ice-cream and a sprig of mint from the garden.

Anyway try the recipe out, let me know if you like it and I’ll see you again for the next video.