Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie -- The Winning Combination!

Here we are ... early October ... and Thanksgiving is upon us. You are all budding young cooks ... what will you make to impress your family, friends and the crankypants next door?

I'll tell you what ... you make THIS fabulous pumpkin pie and they'll be pounding your door off its hinges, and the orders will flood in. No fooling!

We have run these recipes in class ... I have demonstrated, and today you have followed along well. We made litres of filling and kilos of pastry and the results are cooling now as I write this blogpost for you.

Here is what you have made:

Nothing finer than a whole counter lined with your hard work on proud display, eh?

The recipes we have used are at the end of this post. Remember three important things that will help a lot with the pastry; cube the butter and shortening FIRST then re-freeze for at least 30 minutes; have the ice water and vinegar ready immediately, and work quickly with as little hand-touch as possible.

last tip ... use the food processor as little as you can, because if the fats in the butter and shortening heat up, they will start to build the glutens in the flour, and that is exactly what you do NOT want! You want your pastry to be as short (i.e., flaky) as possible. Here is the pastry recipe:

For the filling,

roast the pumpkin with a smear of maple syrup (as the recipe states) and be sure to let the pumpkin cool for a good, long time (I prefer overnight) or else the egg will cook from the heat retained in the pumpkin pulp. (This would NOT be good!) Prepare the filling per; the instructions, and be sure to combine all the dries (the sugars, the spices, the salt), in one large bowl to make the addition simpler. If you do not have a stand-mixer at home, the recipe can simply be donE with a friend (if you have one!) stirring a large bowl with all the stuff going in in proper order, and them stirring with a large French whip.

So go and have fun on our holiday week-end, make some fabulous pie for your family and friends, share the recipes around and to each of you and your supportive families,

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM CHEF!