Pumpkin Pie

I hate waste.

Having scooped out a large pumpkin so the children who were staying with us could make a hallowe’en lantern, I had to make something. This was the result. I have a smaller pumpkin which I’m saving to make a recipe a friend gave me for a pumpkin, prawn and tasso bisque.

To make the tart shell I used the sweet pastry (paté brisée) recipe from the excellent Dan Lepard/Richard Whittington ‘Baking with Passion’ (Quadrille) which I’d highly recommend if  still in print. The filling is my own.

Recipe made one very well filled 32cm tart. Most people will only have tart tins around 24 cms so this amount should fill two tarts.

(Thanks to Aisling and Rhiannon for being first rate pie-testers)

Ingredients:

4 cups of flesh from a large pumpkin (mine was about 2.5 kg!), boiled, drained and pureed

200g dessicated coconut

100g brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of five spice

1 teaspoon flour

2 eggs, lightly beaten

397g tin of  condensed milk

1-2 pastry shells (homemade or bought)

Preheat oven to 210°C . Combine pumpkin, coconut, sugar, salt, spices, and flour*. Add eggs; mix well. Add condensed milk and the water; mix well. Pour into pastry-lined tart dish pan. Bake at 210°C for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 180° and bake about 35 minutes longer, or until center is set.

Sprinkle with a little cinnamon/caster sugar mixture or some good grated chocolate, if you like.

*I like a little booze in these things so I added 1 dessertspoonful of Galliano, which I’d regard as optional.