This week, I share my favorite pumpkin pie recipe in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. It seems fitting not just for the season but also because the introduction to my first column a year ago began with Mike Kordenbrock’s story and Hunter D’Antuono’s photos of another family favorite: Crumble-Top Deep-Dish Apple Pie.

I almost always make one or both of these pies for Thanksgiving gatherings, and they’re delicious for other winter holiday feasts, birthday parties, family meals, and more. If you’re just now stumbling on this recipe, don’t worry: read it completely, decide how many of the components you want to make from scratch, and then remember it for a future holiday.

Learn more about making pies completely from scratch and get the complete recipe for Creamy Roasted Pumpkin Pie in my column.

Make it, share it.
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Twice as Tasty

I tend to fill my homemade pies with pumpkin and apple in cold months because both key ingredients keep well simply boxed up in a cool room. You can also roast and freeze pumpkin puree so that it’s ready to use.

Here are the components you’ll want for a fully scratch-made pumpkin pie.

• Homemade Pumpkin Spice Mix, which you can also use for Spiced and Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
• Roasted Winter Squash Puree
• Cinnamon-and-Sugar Pie Crust

You can read about other ways to use each of these components in their related posts on the blog.

When you’re making this pie, a few of these tips and tricks may come in handy:

• Be sure to drain your home-roasted puree to keep the crust from becoming soggy. Home-roasted pumpkin puree has more water than canned pumpkin, so I even drain it a second time if I’ve frozen and defrosted it.
• When baking, the temperature adjustments help to prevent cracking, which occurs when custard pies like this overcook. That’s also why you want to pull the pie when the center still jiggles; it will continue to cook as it cools. You can check the center temperature with an instant-read thermometer, aiming for about 180°F, but this can leave a small hole in the pie’s smooth surface.
• The flavor boost in this pie comes from the roasting, molasses, and spices, making the rum tasty but optional. For an alcohol-free dessert, simply drop the rum; imitation rum extract (or imitation vanilla, for that matter) isn’t a substitution worthy of your scratch-made efforts.

For a version of this pie scaled for a deep-dish pie plate, check out this recipe. You can find more tasty homemade pies in the recipe index, including sweet and savory crusts and fillings, as well other uses for winter squash puree.

Want more Twice as Tasty recipes? Get my books! Click here to order a personally signed, packaged, and shipped copy of The Complete Guide to Pickling directly from me. I also share tasty ways to use pickles in The Pickled Picnic; it’s only available here.