Pumpkin Pie | The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
And then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving
It’s that wonderful time of the year again - everyone’s (well, America’s) favourite holiday, Halloween! I’ve mentioned before that Halloween was never that much of a holiday when I was growing up in Australia. Now days I tend to see children roaming the streets trick or treating most years, and every 5th house or so on the block adorned in pumpkins and some cobwebs. I think you really need to be in a metro area though for it to be relevant to anyone.
It was a shock to some American friends of mine that I had never in my life tried pumpkin pie as well. I’m sure many people in Australia have had it before, but it is definitely not a regular appearance at any holiday or dinner table that I know of. Considering I had never tried it before, it seemed appropriate to make one for Halloween this year. Especially considering it’s one of the many delights that appears on the feast table within the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
Most of the recipes I found when researching pumpkin pie contained a crazy amount of sugar and the use of canned pumpkin. We don’t really have canned pumpkin in Australia, and adding that much sugar to a dish containing vegetables felt sort of weird. Instead, baking a fresh pumpkin leaves you with a caramelised, sweet result - so the addition of a little more maple syrup and the coconut cream is enough to turn a savoury vegetable into a sweet dessert.
Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients
Pie crust
450g plain flour
190g cold butter, broke into pieces
180ml ice water
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
Filling
1 small pumpkin
2 tbsp maple syrup
4 tbsp corn flour
120ml coconut cream
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat your oven to 180C, and prepare a baking tray with a layer of baking paper. Slide the pumpkin into wedges, laying them out single layer on the prepared baking paper. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the slices of pumpkin are soft. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
Peal the skin from the cooked slices of pumpkin, ensuring that you remove any of the seeds. Place the cooked pumpkin into a blender or a food processor and puree. Depending how watery the type of pumpkin you got is, you may need to leave it wrapped in a cheesecloth or in a sieve overnight to get the excessive water out. I used a Japanese pumpkin, doesn’t tend to be very watery so I was able to use it straight away. You need approximately 500g of pumpkin puree for the pie, so make sure you have enough once you’ve drained the water out.
If you need to leave the water to drain from the pureed pumpkin, it’s a good time to make the pie crust in-between. Combine the flour, salt, sugar and the butter, using your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles wet sand.
Make a well in the middle and pour in the water, mixing until a dough forms. Try not to overwork it during this time otherwise it can end up quite tough. Wrap the formed dough in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 200C. Once the dough has been refrigerated for long enough, remove from the plastic wrap and roll out into a circle large enough to fit into a 26cm pie dish.
Place the dough into a greased pie dish, pressing it down into the edges fully. Lay a piece of baking paper onto the dough and fill with baking beans, place it into the oven and bake for 20 minutes - if the edges of the crust start to get too dark, you can wrap some foil around them. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
Back to the filling. Combine the corn flour and the coconut cream, use a form to properly whisk it together, ensuring no corn flour lumps remain.
Add the coconut cream and corn flour mix, maple syrup, all the spices, and the vanilla into the pumpkin puree, mixing well. Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust, reduce the oven heat to 180C and bake for approx. 35 minutes. It is done when you can gently shake the dish and the middle has a slight jiggle but the rest remain firm. Leave to cool before cutting.