Last weekend I realized I hadn’t had a slice of pumpkin pie all autumn! Now, that isn’t to say I can’t eat pumpkin pie in winter (after all, quite a few Christmas songs mention pumpkin pie) but pumpkin is the flavor of fall! So over the weekend Patrick and I whipped up a pumpkin pie under the guidance of Vincent Price. Doing so called for my pumpkin pie hat from Miss Doolittle’s for that added bit of encouragement as I ventured to make my first pie ever.

While the pumpkin pie recipe comes from Come Into the Kitchen, which just states to use a pie shell, Treasury of Great Recipes had a pie crust recipe that we decided to use.

The recipe for the crust was written to yield 12 pie shells, or six covered pies, so we did the math to create two crusts, thinking we would roll out two and see which one we liked the most. However, we struggled to roll it to 1/8 of an inch, and successfully place it in our Pyrex pie dish. So we decided to roll out a thicker crust with what was two portions of crust, and actually had very little left over.

Both the crust and the filling had relatively few ingredients, however, like some previous recipes, we did make one minor substitution. The recipe called for heavy cream, and unable to find that, we chose to use heavy whipping cream.

Being new to cooking and all, I was a little perplexed at the instructions which read to bake the pie at 425 for 15 minutes, and then to lower it to 350. However, there were no additional instructions as to how long to leave it in at 350! In glancing at the pumpkin pie recipe on the pumpkin can, it said to bake for 45 minutes, so we left the pie in at 350 for 30 minutes. After cooling we made whipped cream to top it off.

Having never made a pumpkin pie before, I didn’t question the spices that were in the recipe, but boy did I when I took a bite! Price’s pumpkin pie calls for ginger, nutmeg, and mace. Turns out, I’m not the biggest fan of mace, and the pie didn’t really taste like pumpkin pie that I’m used to. I looked at other pumpkin pie recipes on the internet (and again at the recipe on the can of pumpkin) to see what was up. Most contemporary pumpkin pies use cinnamon instead of mace, and some recipes also use all spice. Thankfully Patrick liked the pie, so looks like he gets a pie all to himself. In the meantime I’ll just eat my pumpkin pie cheesecake ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s.

You can purchase A Treasury of Great Recipes new on Amazon here, as well as Bookshop, and Powell’s, as well as used on Ebay or Etsy. Come Into the Kitchen is available on Amazon, through Bookshop, as well as used copies on Ebay and Etsy.

Disclaimer: This post contains an Amazon affiliate link.