Clearly I’ve been on a big bourbon-in-cooking kick lately, but this time it’s not my fault! Tara chose the Bourbon Pumpkin Tart for Project Pastry Queen this week!
I do love pumpkin pie—it’s one of my all-time favorites, so I was excited to try a new version of it. I have to admit, I found this one to be a little too spiced (I think it was the cloves), but the addition of bourbon was a lot of fun. The changes I made to the recipe were out of necessity and not experimentation with my own version, unfortunately, because I made this pie in a kitchen that was not my own, hence the pie instead of the great tart idea and, because I skipped ahead a few weeks to also make the Southern Comfort Apple Pie which also had a crumb topping, I left the crumb topping off of this pumpkin pie so as not to be too redundant (I was cooking for a crowd, after all, and who needs crumble topping on both pies for dessert?). I also regret to say that I used store-bought crust because, again, I was cooking for a crowd in a foreign kitchen (you can tell–look how it bubbles in the picture). That said, making this recipe made me realize that the new pie plates I bought are actually deep-dish pie plates, because the rolled up pie crust I usually use in a pinch didn’t have any left over for crimping the edges!
I highly highly suggest you keep this recipe in the back of your mind for Thanksgiving, especially if you like a pumpkin pie chock-full of spices—and if not, just leave out the cloves and ginger and be sure to serve the pie with whipped cream to mellow the flavors out. I’m posting the recipe as I made it, but if you would prefer to try the original tart version with crumble topping, as written in The Pastry Queen, head over to Tara’s blog (who, by the way made an absolutely gorgeous tart–it makes me wish I had saved this pie to make at home and hadn’t had to “dumb” mine down!).
Bourbon Pumpkin Pie
Adapted from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rathers
- 1 can (15 oz) pure pumpkin
- 3 large eggs
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 tablespoon flour
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
- ¼ cup bourbon
- 1 refrigerated pie crust (for a homemade pie crust recipe, see my previous post on Peach Pie)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Roll out crust and gently ease it into a 9 inch pie plate.
- Add pumpkin to a large bowl and whisk in the eggs, one at a time until thoroughly incorporated.
- Add both sugars, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and flour; whisk vigorously until combined. Whisk in cream and bourbon.
- Pour the pumpkin mixture into the prepared pie crust and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the filling is set and doesn’t jiggle when you move the pie plate back and forth.
- Let cool 1 hour before serving and, as I mentioned before, serve with whipped cream!
A Gilt Nutmeg 