Confession time. I have never, ever eaten pumpkin pie. Wait, don’t go! I have a good reason- I’m deathly allergic to pumpkin. Not really, but that excuse was my go-to when I was 10. Here is the real reason- I hate the smell of the inside of a pumpkin. Whenever Halloween rolls around, and it’s time to carve out our Jack-O-Lanterns I always brace myself for that nasty pumpkin odor. Well, I bit the bullet and made a pumpkin meringue pie today, and I had a slice. It was really good. Really really good. Granted, I can’t compare this particular pie to other pumpkin pies, but it truly was yummy. A yummy, creamy, autumn-flavored pie, topped with a shiny, sweet meringue. And it had no inner pumpkin smell whatsoever! Hallelujah!
I got this elgeant recipe from Food & Wine Magazine. Besides eating pumpkin pie, another first for me was making a meringue topping. Meringue is a foam made up of egg whites, sugar and a pinch of cream of tartar. The cream of tartar is used to help stabilize the egg whites when heated in the oven. For this recipe, I made enough pie crust for two 9-inch pie shells I separated each pastry dough into two discs before chilling in the refrigerator for an hour. I blind baked one disc in a pie plate. I rolled and cut out little leaves with the other disc for some Autumn pie decoration. You can find my Pie Pastry recipe here, and my Blind-Bake instructions here, and my YouTube “How To Make Pie Pastry” video here.
While your crust is blind-baking, mix the pumpkin, sugar, salt, and autumn spices.
Mix in cream and eggs.
Pour pumpkin mixture into warm pie shell and bake for 45 minutes.
Pumpkin pie! You could stop right here, and call it a day, or take it up a notch and make some kick-ass meringue.
In a standing mixer, beat 4 egg whites and cream of tartar until you reach soft peaks.
Slowly beat in sugar and vanilla extract until you reach shiny, stiff peaks.
Top pumpkin pie with the meringue, and bake until meringue lightly browns (about 10 minutes).
With the other pie pastry, roll out to 1/8 of an inch, cut leaves out with a cutter, and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake leaves until golden brown (about 15 minutes).
Adorn the pie with the delicate pastry leaves and dig in.
