Fluffy Pumpkin Pie From Julia Child’s Aunt Helen, Via Julia Moskin Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between Libby's pumpkin and pumpkin pie filling? ›

Canned pumpkin and pumpkin puree are the same thing, and you'll often see the terms used interchangeably in recipes and cookbooks. Unlike pumpkin pie mix, canned pumpkin does not have any spices, sugars, or other additives. In many cases, the only ingredient is pumpkin.

Pumpkin pie filling will be labeled as pumpkin pie mix or pumpkin pie filling. Ingredients - Pumpkin puree made from scratch contains only pumpkin, but canned puree may contain a preservative like salt. Pumpkin pie filling contains additional ingredients like sugar, spices, and thickeners.

Although she doesn't often stray from traditional flavors, her pumpkin pie recipe is actually pretty unique. The classic warm spices — cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg — are there, but what makes Ina's recipe special is the addition of orange zest and dark rum.

Early American settlers of the Plymouth Colony in southern New England (1620-1692) may have made pumpkin pies, of sorts, without crusts. They stewed pumpkins or filled a hollowed out pumpkin shell with milk, honey and spices, and then baked it in hot ashes.

Don't use pumpkin pie filling in place of pumpkin purée.

Not exactly! Every can of pumpkin pie filling has a different amount of sugar and spices and if you add it to a bread or muffin recipe you might get a very sweet and not-spiced-enough loaf. Try this instead: Buy pumpkin purée!

If you meant to purchase pumpkin pie filling but accidentally grabbed a can of plain pumpkin, it's easy to sweeten and season the puree. Follow a good pumpkin pie recipe (there's usually a recipe printed right on the label) and add sugar and spices to the puree along with other ingredients like eggs before baking.

Choose The Right Kind

For cooking, you'll want to use sugar pumpkins (also called pie or sweet pumpkins), which are small and round. Long Island Cheese pumpkins, which are more oblong and can look like a wheel of cheese, are also good to eat.

Start with the right variety of pumpkins, sugar pumpkins. Large pumpkins that we traditionally think of as jack-o-lanterns aren't ideal for pie as they are very stringy and have a lot of seeds. There really isn't very much “meat” to the larger pumpkins. Sugar pumpkins, also known as pie pumpkins, are sweeter.

Sugar Baby Pumpkin

Also known as Sugar Pie pumpkins, these thin-skinned squash are smaller (4-8 lbs.) and have a sweet, dense flesh with a fine-grained, smooth texture. The cooked flesh is a bit drier, which makes a great pie filling.

Patti Labelle's Easy Pumpkin Pie Recipe- Southern Soul Food

Distinctive dishes are precisely prepared, using fresh ingredients.

Which canned pumpkin is best for pie? ›

Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin

In this taste test, our Test Kitchen pros found that the biggest name in the pumpkin game does, in fact, make the best canned pumpkin on the market. Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin is a favorite among our culinary crew.

Those cracks you see in your pie are the result of overcooked eggs, eggs that have tightened up so much, in an uneven way, that they've created fissures in the filling. Usually you'll notice cracks around the edge of the pie first, which makes sense; the edges cook more quickly than the interior.

Pumpkin pie is most popular among residents in North Carolina, Michigan, Maryland, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, West Virginia, Mississippi, and South Dakota.

Fast forward to Medieval times and pies had definitely become a thing. Fillings at this point included “…beef, lamb, wild duck, magpie, pigeon – spiced with pepper, currants or dates.” The Roman habit of using pastry as a vessel to cook the filling was commonplace.

This type of pie appears to have been made by some of the early colonists as well—but, by 1796, when Amelia Simmons' American Cookery, the first cookbook written by an American and published in America, appeared, pumpkin pie had evolved into a familiar form that we would recognize today.

Libby's, the quintessential canned pumpkin brand, uses a proprietary strain of the Dickinson pumpkin variety in their product, which is also often called a Dickinson squash. On Libby's website, it states that their product is 100 percent pumpkin.

The Best Overall: Libby's 100% Pure Canned Pumpkin

There is a reason that Libby's 100% Pure Pumpkin has been the go-to brand for so many people for so long.

Pumpkin: Of course, you'll need a can of Libby's pure pumpkin. Evaporated milk: A can of evaporated milk lends richness and helps thicken the pie filling.

Best Canned Pumpkin: 365 by Whole Foods Market Organic Pumpkin Purée. This can received the most #1 rankings (it was also the only one to earn all 3s or higher). Tasters really responded to Whole Foods Market Organic Pumpkin Purée's bright color, “very smooth” texture, and “gentle fall” flavor.