ALL AMERICAN PUMPKIN PIE WITH MARSHMALLOW TOFFEE MERINGUE

Pumpkin Pie Day 26th October

I love growing pumpkins, squashes and gourds they give a great pop of colour from bright orange to powder blue in the garden and a Jurassic plant theme, I love the large sizes and knobbly designs  but even more they yield a hearty crop that is easily stored over winter for using in fabulous soups, curry’s, roasted, gnocchi, mashed, risotto, pies, cakes and muffins among so many more great recipes.

Pumpkin Pie Ingredients

(30 oz pie filling)

30 oz roasted pumpkin purée 

550ml double cream

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar

4 tsp pumpkin spice (recipe below)

2 tsp vanilla paste

1 tsp sea salt

4 whole eggs beaten plus 2 egg yolks

Marshmallow Toffee Meringue 

3 lrg egg whites

260g caster sugar

7 generous tbsp golden syrup 

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla paste

Old Fashioned Pastry

450g plain flour

150g cold butter diced

70g cold lard diced

180 ml cold water

5g sea salt

Home grown 

Homemade Pumpkin Spice

3 tbsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

tsp fresh grated nutmeg

tsp ground all spice

1 tsp ground cloves

Mix together and store any left over in a ball mason jar.

Cut the pumpkin in to quarters, deseed and roast the pumpkin skin side up or down it is fine either way for 1 hour at 200 C / 400 F.  

Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes until you can handle peeling the skin off, place the quarters in to a food processor and blitz until smooth, transfer in to a large mixing bowl.

Your oven will already be pre heated from roasting the pumpkin at 200 C / 400 F Roll out the pastry and line your butter greased baking dish prick the base with a fork, add baking paper and baking beans, bake for 10 minutes then a further 5 minutes without the baking beans.

At this point add all the pumpkin pie Ingredients and whisk in to the pumpkin purée until smooth.

Pour the pumpkin pie filling in to the blind baked pastry case and bake in the oven for approx 50 minutes until the Center is still a little jiggly wobbly, remove from the oven and leave to cool.  Your pumpkin pie is done you can serve this with vanilla butter cream or…see below…

This pumpkin pie is just glorious as it is BUT…HOW ABOUT A TOFFEE MARSHMALLOW MERINGUE TOPPING ?

Best Ever Marshmallow Toffee Meringue 



Place all the marshmallow meringue ingredients in to a bowl, place the bowl over a gently simmering pan of water and whisk (I use a electric hand whisk) continuously for around 5-7 minutes until soft peaks hold, thick and glossy, if you pinch some of the meringue and rub between your fingers the feeling should be smooth as all the sugar would be dissolved then your meringue is perfect and ready to top your pie.  Dollop on and spread out with a spatula and donk up some peaks with your spatula.  If you want some caramelised curls then use a blow torch to do this.