plumpking pie

part of my goals for april was to bake a pumpkin pie. bae loves pumpkin pies, and since he wasn’t too taken with my apple pie, i decided i had to give this a shot. everyone told me that pumpkin pie is the easiest to make, so it’s silly i was so hesitant, but trying new things always stresses me out a bit. either way, i’m proud to say, i did it!

my best friend gave me her family recipe, and i unfortunately forgot the card at home when i went grocery shopping so i bought the ingredients needed in all the common recipes i found online. i ended up haphazardly mixing recipes so to be honest i wasn’t quite sure how it would turn out.

the recipes online all said to whisk together the ingredients, but leta’s recipe said to use a blender. and by golly, if there’s an easier way to do it, you know i will take that path. i was also excited to use our blender. bae and i have only used it about three times since we bought it over two years ago.

i was a wimp again this time and went with pre-made crust. i will definitely make my own dough one day, but for now this had to suffice. i still ended up re-rolling it so i could make it fit my pie pan perfectly.

the filling was so bright and colorful, definitely not what i had expected. i thought it would come out much darker, so i was pleasantly surprised when i saw how good it looked in the pictures i took.

i had a vision forever that when i would make this pie, i would braid the crust. this was by far one of the most difficult things i’ve ever had to do. pre-made crust is not exactly flexible, so i struggled a lot with this part. even looking back on it now almost gives me a headache remembering how hot and frustrated i was getting.

in the end, i was pretty satisfied with the results. i braided sections at a time, so it did not look even all the way around. you can see from the picture that the crust was really getting crumbly.

i baked the pie at the suggested times and temperatures, but the top still came out looking so dark! i was worried the braids on the crust would burn, but they didn’t so i guess it’s still a win. not the prettiest pie, but i was still proud of my hard work.

i cut myself a slice so i could see how it looked. the inside didn’t burn and the color remained consistent. i’m so glad that, excluding the top, it looked pretty good! i tried it, and it was actually tasty. we never finish everything i bake so i always end up keeping only a little for home and taking the rest for my coworkers. i expected bae to tell me to take the whole pie to work – i didn’t think he liked it that much – but he actually wanted me to save some for him.  this made me so happy.

well, there it is, my second pie. though not perfect by any means, it turned out decent. i tried very hard to think of a clever pun name for this pie since my apple of my pie is also a pun. i hope you didn’t cringe too much at “plump king pie.”

do you have any suggestions for me to try next?