Best Pumpkin Pie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should I Prebake pumpkin pie crust? ›

For a guaranteed browned bottom, prebake the pie crust

You may want to cover the edges with a pie shield or strips of aluminum foil, but the bottom will remain perfectly brown and crisp — not burned.

Pumpkin pie is a great make-ahead dessert to cross off your Thanksgiving to-do list. You can prepare and bake the pie up to two days in advance, and it will still taste great on the big day. Just make sure you store the pie in the refrigerator—not on the kitchen counter—until you are ready to serve it.

Sugar Baby Pumpkin

Also known as Sugar Pie pumpkins, these thin-skinned squash are smaller (4-8 lbs.) and have a sweet, dense flesh with a fine-grained, smooth texture. The cooked flesh is a bit drier, which makes a great pie filling.

The pie is generally flavored with pumpkin pie spice, a blend that includes cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves or allspice. The pie is usually prepared with canned pumpkin, but fresh-cooked pumpkin can be used.

Often, blind-baking solves this problem. If you're making a single crust custard-filled pie, like a pumpkin pie, bake the pie dough first before adding filling to allow some of the moisture in the crust to evaporate. You can also totally blind-bake fruit pies.

Why Are Store-Bought Pies Not Refrigerated? So that brings many of us to the question: Why are the pumpkin pies at the grocery store sitting out? Store-bought pumpkin pies include shelf-stable ingredients such as preservatives which allow them to last longer, even at room temp.

Many pie recipes call for baking the filled pie at a high temperature (425°F [218°C]) to set the structure of the crust before lowering the oven temperature to finish cooking the filling more gently.

The USDA advises against leaving food out of refrigeration for more than two hours to avoid the “danger zone,” the temperature range (between 40°F and 140°F) where bacteria grows the fastest. If your homemade pumpkin pie has been refrigerated, it can safely sit at room temperature for up to two hours before serving.

Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin

In this taste test, our Test Kitchen pros found that the biggest name in the pumpkin game does, in fact, make the best canned pumpkin on the market. Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin is a favorite among our culinary crew.

Why is my pumpkin pie bland? ›

Now if your pie tends to come out bland, you may not be letting your spices hit their full potential. Joy Wilson of Joy the Baker suggests, "To get the most festive flavor out of the spices in your pumpkin pie, bloom the spices with the pumpkin puree in a small saucepan before incorporating into the filling.

Jack O Lantern pumpkins, which is lighter than baking pumpkins and also can be baked and turned into a pumpkin pie or desert.

If the recipe doesn't use enough spice, or if the spices were old enough to have lost much of their flavour, or if the mixture isn't well balanced, then the pie is not going to taste right and could be quite bland.

Yes, the actual pumpkin in the dish is quite healthy, but the butter and flour in the crust as well as the cream and sugar needed for the filling add a good dose of saturated fat and calories. But a healthy pumpkin pie is possible!

The directions on the crust say to thaw and bake as recipe directs, the recipe includes a homemade crust though which they want pre-baked. If the frozen crust says to bake as recipe directs and the recipe says to pre bake then yes, you should pre bake it.

Line the crust with foil, parchment, or a paper coffee filter. Fill it about two-thirds full with dried beans, uncooked rice (or other uncooked grain berries), pie weights, or granulated sugar. Bake the crust in a preheated 375°F oven for 20 minutes, set on a baking stone or steel if you have one.

If the bottom crust doesn't set before the filling soaks in, it's going to be gummy. A metal pie pan placed on a preheated surface will set the bottom crust quickest; once cooked, the liquids from the filling above won't soak in, and as a result: no soggy bottom.

Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Cover the edge of crust with Handi-foil Aluminum Roll Foil to prevent over-browning and continue to bake for 35 minutes.