Here is another recipe from the cookbook of my Great-grandmother. BTW, her name was Kate Dwyer. My oldest daughter is named after her; Kathryn.

This is her recipe for pumpkin pie. In my family, the regular kind of pumpkin pie (you know, the recipe on the side of the canned pumpkin tin?) is know as “Mud Pie” and is frowned upon when brought to family gatherings. At the least it is looked at with suspicion. And maybe sadness.

Anyway, this is our family recipe for pumpkin pie, and really it allows the pumpkin to shine through!

Mammy’s Pumpkin Pie

Don’t try this recipe using canned pumpkin, I can’t be held responsible for the results.

Ingredients

1 pint HOME-canned pumpkin, which is 2 cups ( by no means should you use store bought canned pumpkin in this recipe!)

To prepare fresh pumpkin, bake a small pie pumpkin at 350*F til its fork tender. Just place a cut pumpkin cut side down, with the seeds cleaned out of it, on a foil or parchment covered baking sheet. When the pumpkin is tender enough to push a fork through the shell, it’s done. Let it cool enough to handle it then scoop out the baked pumpkin.  You can just bake a whole pumpkin if you prefer, I do that pretty often. 

1 1/2 cups sugar – use whatever sugar you like,  raw, white, etc. This is a LOT of sugar. The end product is a lot like jam and it’s too sweet for me so I cut back the sugar to 1 1/8 cups.

1/2 stick butter cut into small pieces

If you baked your pumpkin, scoop out the cooked pulp and put it in a small sauce pan. Turn the heat on low and cook the pumpkin til its dry and then add the sugar.

You should cook the pumpkin on LOW and cook it til there is no more water at the bottom of the pan when you push back the pumpkin. It can take most of the day to do this. If you turn up the heat, it will take less time but be careful not to burn it

Cook the home canned pumpkin on low as well til its dry then add sugar and cook until waxy. It looks like this …..

Add the sugar and stir until it is dissolved in the pumpkin.

Spread in a 9 inch pie crust. Slice all of the butter and drop over the pie. Sprinkle some sanding sugar or just regular sugar over top and add a dash of ground cinnamon. Cover with strips of crust if desired.

To make the pie look shiny you can paint the crust with milk, then sprinkle with sugar or sanding sugar.  Bake as directed.

To make it really shiny, use an egg wash to paint the crust before baking. 1 egg yolk beaten with about 2 tablespoons of water will work.

Bake in a 350* oven until brown. If desired cover the top of the pie with pecans before adding strips of crust, then proceed with baking.

Bake the pie in a 350*F oven til the crust is nicely browned, about 20 minutes. Cool before serving if you can.

Here is my favorite pie crust recipe