Last year, I attempted to make my own pumpkin purée for pumpkin pie with a regular carving pumpkin. Big mistake, huge. It was stringy, and not at all what I was expecting. I didn’t realize you’re supposed to use certain types of pumpkins, like sugar pumpkins, to make purée. This year, however, was a success.
Trying to find a sugar pumpkin was a little bit harder than I anticipated however, I found a grocery store nearby that had barrels of them in stock! I recommend using at least two 3-4lb sugar pumpkins. I bought one 4lb pumpkin and was a 1/2 cup short of purée.
I could not find a working scale at the grocery store, so I brought two pumpkins with me to the self-checkout to weigh. As I was weighing the pumpkins, a lady comes running over to tell me the pumpkins were $2 flat. I told her, I knew that and needed to weigh them to make sure I had enough pumpkin. She was not understanding and continued to push buttons on the screen. I said, “Excuse me, what are you doing? I am weighing the pumpkins to see if they are heavy enough.” She continued to say they were $2 and did not need to be weighed. Thank god for the other worker who understood what I was trying to do and came over to remove the annoying employee. I thought, “I’m just trying to buy a pumpkin.”
Homemade Pumpkin Purée
Roasting the pumpkin was a lot easier than I thought. But make sure to pick up some cheesecloth to help sift out some extra water. And give yourself time! You’ll need 3 hours for the purée and 2 hours for the pumpkin pie. So make this purée ahead of time so you’re not spending all day making the pie (unless you have the time)!
The recipe below has instructions for making the purée and the pie. However, you can use the purée to make pumpkin bread, too!
Homemade Pumpkin Purée and Pumpkin Pie
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Loading...This recipe explains how to make pumpkin purée and pumpkin pie. Leave yourself an entire day to make the pie(s) or make the purée the day before/ahead of time.
Ingredients
- 2, 3-4lb sugar pumpkins
- Cheesecloth
- 1.75 cups (15oz) pumpkin purée
- 1.5 cups evaporated milk
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 2 large eggs
- 1 unbaked pie crust
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Cut sugar pumpkins in half. Remove the stems from both ends.
Scoop out the guts from the halves. Sort out and save the seeds if you want to roast them.
Place the halves flesh side down on the baking sheets. Two halves should be able to fit on each baking sheet.
Place in the oven for about one hour or until the flesh is tender and you can stick a fork through easily.
Let halves cool until you can touch them.
Scoop out the flesh into a food processor.
Blend pumpkin until smooth.
Line a medium bowl with cheesecloth.
Pour the pumpkin purée into the cheesecloth-lined bowl.
Wrap up and twist around the purée. Move to a colander and let sit in the sink or in another bowl for two to three hours. This helps to remove extra water in the purée. Every once in a while, squeeze the cheesecloth to help get more water out.
Once sufficiently drained, move to storage jars and place in the fridge or freezer. Or...make some pie!
To make the pumpkin pie, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and line your pie dish with pie crust.
In a small bowl mix the sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs.
Add in the dry mix and pumpkin purée, and stir together.
Continuing stirring and slowly add in the evaporated milk until combined.
Pour pie filling into your pie crust. Cover edges with a pie crust guard or aluminum foil.
Place in the oven for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, remove the pie crust guard and turn down the heat to 350 degrees F for another 30-40 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and let sit on a wire rack until completely cool (about two hours).
Dig in!
