“Good friends are like stars…. You don’t always see them, but you know they are always there”
I have a friend from Canada and together we used to enjoy swapping recipes, talking about food and embarking on oven-baked finger food odysseys. Being Canadian, she had a fine sense of North American cuisine, and shared with me her recipe for pumpkin pie that she made with a hazelnut pastry. It seemed timely that this recipe appear on my blog in November, in time for Thanksgiving (which is also celebrated by Canadians) and after discovering canned pureed pumpkin on the shelves in Waitrose last week.
Thank you to my Canadian friend for sharing this recipe with me and for your wicked and ingenious approach to baking. While we might not be able to cook and eat together anymore, I’ll always think of you when I make this pumpkin pie. You can eat this pie on the day of baking,as I have done and still do, but it is far better the next day, after the flavours have had time to mature.
Pumpkin Pie with Hazelnut Crust recipe
Ingredients:
For the filling
1 x tin of Libby’s pumpkin puree (or 500g of steamed/baked pureed pumpkin)
70g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup of cream (or you can use evaporated milk)
For the pastry
200g flour
125g cold butter, diced
100g hazelnut meal
2 tbs icing sugar
2 tbs water (or as much as you need to bind the dough)
OVEN at 180C
Method:
For the pastry
Put flour and butter in a processor and whiz till it resembles fine breadcrumbs
Add the hazelnut meal and icing sugar and whiz to combine, adding water till the dough just starts to come together.
Press into a prepared tart dish (9-10″) or roll out and place in. Pop it in the freezer while you make the filling.
Blind bake for ten minutes with weights, and then ten minutes without until the crust is browned.
Turn oven down to 160C
For the filling
Put everything into the processor while it’s out and whiz till it’s all blended.
Pour the filling into the pie crust and cook on 160C for about an hour or until set and starting to brown on top.
Cool for about 2 hours and then serve with cream.
