Pumpkin Pie please!

This past weekend my family and I celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada.  We had a wonderful turkey dinner complete with all the trimmings; including pumpkin pie.  It seems to me that pumpkin pie is one of those polarising desserts which people either love or completely hate.  I happen to fall into the love category and feel it's non-negotiable to have a pumpkin pie on my Thanksgiving table.

I've tried a lot of different recipes for pie filling and pastry over the years; trying to replicate the flavour of the best pumpkin pie I've had in the past.  I want my recipe to have the perfect balance of spices, strong pumpkin flavour, creamy with a velvety texture; all tied together with a rich, tender and flaky pastry.  For me, the perfect balance comes from a custard style pumpkin filling and a pate brisée (pie dough) recipe by Michel Roux from his book "Pastry" that simply cannot be beat.

I usually do a classic crimped edge on my most of my pie crusts by using my fingers to press together little bits of the dough, all around the edge.  However, this year I decided to make a slightly more elaborate edge to my pastry by layering round cut outs of pastry around the edge and sprinkling with turbinado sugar.  It's very simple and easy to do, but gives the pie a very elegant appearance.

Here's the recipe for the pastry and pumpkin filling:
(I recommend making the pastry first, while it's resting in the refrigerator, start on the pie filling.)

Pate Brisée:

1 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
2/3 cup (150 grams or 5 ounces) of unsalted butter cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon of salt
Pinch of sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon of cold milk

Heap the flour on a counter and make a well.  Put the butter, salt, sugar and egg into the well and using your fingers mix and cream these ingredients together.  Add the milk and continue to mix until a cohesive dough starts to form.  Then kneed the dough until it forms into smooth ball, then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface to about a 1/4 of an inch thickness.  Then place in pie plate.

Trim excess dough from the edges (and reserve), then either crimp the edge with your fingers, or cut out small rounds from the excess dough to line the edge.  If you decide to cut out rounds of dough, I recommend re-rolling out the excess dough very thinly.  This way you should have enough dough to make rounds of pastry to line the entire edge.  Also, you could double the pate brisée recipe to ensure you have enough excess dough for the decoration and freeze any extra pastry for another use.  As well, I find it works really well to use the non-tip end of a large metal piping tip, for cutting out the dough rounds.

Then using a pastry brush, dab some water or egg wash around the edge of the pie crust and line the edge with the pie dough rounds, overlapping each round slightly.

Dab more water or egg wash on the finished edge and sprinkle with some turbinado sugar.  Dock the bottom of the pastry with the tines of a fork and place in the freezer for about 10 minutes before filling (this ensures the pastry holds it's shape and doesn't shrink while baking).

Pumpkin Filling:

1 1/4 cups of pumpkin puree (either from a can by baking pie pumpkins and pureeing)
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (or 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg)
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon Chinese five spice
Freshly ground pepper (a few grinds from a pepper mill)
Pinch of salt
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cups of whipping cream
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, maple syrup, the spices, pepper and salt.  Then add the eggs, whipping cream and vanilla whisking until well combined and the mixture is smooth.

Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust and bake for 40 to 60 minutes (depending on your oven) or until the crust is golden brown and the centre of the filling has a slight wobble when the pie plate is jiggled.  Cool the entire pie to room temperature and store in the fridge until ready to serve.  I recommend whipping some cream, adding some powdered sugar and vanilla to it and putting a dollop of this on each serving of pie.  If you want to gild the lily, a little sprinkle of cinnamon on each piece of pie is beautiful and tastes lovely.