As I mentioned in my Egg Free Pumpkin Muffins post, I finally decided to make inroads into baking with pumpkin. This time I’m making Mini Pumpkin Pies. I know it’s nowhere near Halloween or Thanksgiving but it doesn’t matter since we don’t celebrate them. We also get pumpkin the year round in my part of the world.
Pumpkin Pie is as American as, say, as an igloo is Eskimo. Though the first Pumpkin Pies were made in England, they truly came into their own in the US. 16 and 17th-century cookbooks recipes called for pumpkin boiled in milk before putting it in a flour crust. Sometimes, the pumpkin was layered with apples in the pie. So the early New England settlers must have brought the Pumpkin Pie across with them. Their early recipes called for hollowing out a pumpkin. They then filled it with spiced and/or sweetened boiled milk that was drunk from the pumpkin gourd. Scarcity of pie ingredients must have been the reason for this.
The traditional pumpkin pie we know today was a part of New England Thanksgiving by the early 1700s. According to history, Pumpkin Pie and Thanksgiving were very much a part of New England culture in the US. Eventually, all of the states adopted Thanksgiving and its requisite pumpkin pie along with it. With time and seasonal availability, pumpkins have become very common in American popular culture. Think pumpkin spice latte, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin soup, pumpkin cake, pumpkin brownies, ………
I prefer pumpkin in savoury bakes but that’s mostly because I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. My traditional and native cuisine cooks pumpkin in savoury dishes, not sweet ones. I won’t argue that pumpkin baked a sweet dish can be really good. Let’s just agree that a large part of pumpkin in bakes involves disguising much of it with spices and stuff. I will tell you that these Mini Pumpkin Pies are good. I prefer making mini single serve versions of pie unless one has a bunch of people to serve it to. Single serve portions allow you to bake as few or as many as you need. You also get more flaky buttery pastry per portion which is a win-win situation in my books!
You can make the pie crust dough and pumpkin pie filling separately and refrigerate them. This makes making these mini pies a breeze. Bake them and serve them at room temperature or chilled, with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream. They can be baked and frozen a week in advance. Thaw them overnight in the fridge the night before serving them. Then warm them up in an 180C (350F) oven for five to eight minutes to crisp the crust.
Mini Pumpkin Pies
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 100 gm cold unsalted butter diced
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup cold water
For the filling:
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp crushed black pepper
- pinch of salt
- 3/4 pumpkin puree
- 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
- 1 egg
Instructions
Make the Crust :
- Put the flour and salt with the diced, chilled butter in a large bowl. Combine using your fingertips to pinch the butter into the flour. This will produce flakier pastry. You should have largish bits of butter evenly distributed in the flour. Sprinkle the cold water on top. Stir the dough together with a fork; do not knead the dough. Sprinkle a little more water (very little) if required. Try not err on the dry side.
- You should be able to press together the dough into a ball that feels somewhat moist but not wet. Bring the dough together into a ball. Flatten into a thick disc and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate it for a minimum of an hour, or till you’re ready to bake the pies.
Make the Pie :
- Whisk together all the ingredients for the filling in a bowl till smooth. Keep aside. You can refrigerate this for a few hours if necessary.
- Remove the dough from the fridge. Wait till it is soft enough to roll out, if necessary. Flour your work surface and roll the dough out to a rough 9" circle. Use more flour as needed to prevent the dough sticking.
- Cut out rounds using a 3 1/2 or 4-inch cookie cutter depending on the size of your muffin cups. Gather together the scraps (do not knead), roll out cut more rounds. You should have about 18 or so rounds. Re-roll any remaining scraps to cut out shapes to top the pies, if you want.
- Place one dough round into each lightly greased muffin cup, pushing it in to fit gently with your fingers. Divide the filling between the muffin cups, filling a bit short of the edges. The filling will puff up a bit while baking. Gently place the cut out topping shapes, if any, on the filling.
- Bake them at 190C (375F) for 25 to 30 minutes till the pastry starts browning and the filling is firm. Let mini pies cool in muffin cups completely before removing. The puffed up filling will settle slightly. Run a very thin knife around the edges of the pies, if necessary, to pop them out of the muffin pan. Serve at room temperature or chilled with whipped cream or ice-cream.
I'm Aparna and My Diverse Kitchen is my ovo-lacto vegetarian food blog where you'll find recipes, food stories & photography. I've been blogging since 2007 and believe the kitchen, and the dining table (by extension) is really the heart of a home. 
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