October ABC challenge: Cafe Pasqual's Pumpkin Pie (and cocktail!)

The ABC challenge this month was custard.  My first thought went to Portuguese egg tarts, then Mexican chamucos, but ultimately, considering the season, pumpkin pie was the obvious choice, and another opportunity to capture the elusive Cafe Pasqual pumpkin pie.  This is my second attempt to recreate it (my first attempt was here), this time using the recipe from their cookbook, although the recipe might not be fully forthcoming with exactly what they use and I made some minor adjustments.

As much as I love pumpkin pie, this recipe is richer than what I normally make, so I decided to scale it down to a half recipe.  (Actually one quarter, since the recipe in the book is for two pies.)  The real trick was finding an appropriate pan.  I calculated the volume of the original recipe and the volume of several pans I thought might work and finally settled on a pan from a Marie Callender's take-home pie, which measured 8¼" x 1¼".  This ended up being slightly too large and produced a thinner pie, but it still worked fine. Fortunately I started checking the pie early, because it also reduced the baking time.

Here's what I used:

1 pre-baked whole wheat pie crust, fitted into an 8-inch* pie dish (recipe below)

1 cup (1/2 of a 15-ounce can) pumpkin puree

2 large eggs

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup + 3 tablespoons maple syrup

2 tablespoons dark, unsulphured blackstrap molasses

1/2 tablespoon ground ginger

1/8  teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1/16 teaspoon cayenne pepper

pinch sea salt

3/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 ounces evaporated milk or heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 400F.  In a bowl, beat the pumpkin and the eggs with a wire whisk.  Add the sour cream and whisk again.  Blend in the remaining ingredients, mixing with a whisk until thoroughly combined. Pour mixture into baked pie shell crust and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 and bake for an additional 30 minutes (45 minutes for the full recipe), until center is almost set and a toothpick or knife inserted into the center comes out clean.  If the crust edges are browning too quickly, fit a ring of foil around the rim. Let pie cool completely on a rack before serving.

Whole Wheat Pie Crust (for 1 crust pie)

1¼ cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 pinch sea salt

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 cup pecans, finely chopped

1/2 cup cold, unsalted butter

2 tablespoons ice water

1/2 large egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of water

In large bowl, mix dry ingredients.  Add butter and, with a pastry blender or your hands, incorporate until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.  Add ice water and toss lightly with a fork.  Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll the dough into a 12-inch circle about 1/8-inch thick.  Fit dough into the bottom of the pie dish, cutting off the excess, and decoratively crimp edges.  Brush the egg and water mixture thoroughly all over the crust, then bake for 12 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack before filling.

 

 

I was misled by the high amount of butter in the dough and added only 1 tablespoon of the water.  It felt perfectly moist and held together easily, or seemed to anyway, but when I rolled it out, the dough was very firm and crumbly, made even more fragile by the pecans.  Fortunately, because of all the butter, it patches easily.  

I like the crust a little on the salty side, so I used half salted butter and half unsalted.  After tasting it, I added 1/8 teaspoon of additional salt.  In the future, I'll probably just use salted butter (although that might be too much in this case because it's such a high butter content.)

I followed the original directions for the filling, which mixed the eggs with the syrup, and then added the sour cream, but quickly realized they are not in good order.  The egg and syrup mixture was far too liquid to try to mix the sour cream into, resulting in little bits of cream floating around.  (I wonder if the restaurant uses Mexican sour cream, which is much more liquid and would blend into the egg/syrup mixture easily.  If so, this would be a case in which the cookbook deviates slightly from the restaurant.  That's understandable, since Mexican sour cream isn't widely available.)  Another change I made was to use blackstrap molasses.  In my first attempt, the results were too sweet.  Blackstrap molasses is much less sweet and has a much deeper flavor.  I also used half heavy cream and half full-fat evaporated milk.

I knew my oven had a temperature difference from front to back, but apparently the regions are so distinct they're evident across the width of an 8-inch pie.  Half of the crust is darker than the other, and that side of the filling also baked differently.  I know all about rotating cookie sheets midway through baking -- apparently I'll have to do it even for pies as well.

Conclusion:  Very tasty, with an intense, spicy flavor that deepened over the next couple days.  This pie was not super sweet, but the sweetness at first was sort of cloying; there seemed to be too much molasses and too much maple syrup.  Two days later, however, the flavors had mingled and become richer, the same way a good spaghetti sauce improves over time in the refrigerator.  The pie had a surprising earthiness that I couldn't quite pin down, but I suspect it was the molasses.  I'm not usually a fan of whipped cream on pumpkin pie, but the intense flavors in this pie benefit from a good dollop (as recommended in the original recipe.)  I don't know that the pecans in the crust added anything, but the buttery crust was a delicious accompaniment to the filling.

Original Recipe:  David's Perfect Pumpkin Pie via Cooking with Cafe Pasqual's:  Recipes from Santa Fe's Renowned Corner Cafe

So what does one do with half a can of pumpkin puree?  You make these:

Pumpkin Pie Cocktail (serves one)

1 tablespoon canned pure pumpkin puree

2 tablespoons half & half

1 tablespoon maple syrup

3 tablespoons brandy

1/8 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves)

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine all the ingredients in a martini shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously, then strain into a glass.

The original recipe calls for vodka, but I used brandy and it was delicious. I also omitted the sugared and
spiced rim because it made the drink too sweet. This mixture also makes a good addition to coffee for a
homemade pumpkin spice latte (with or without the booze.)

Original Recipe: Pumpkin Martini via Real Simple