This is it!! It’s the biggest eating season of the year! After we finish off all the Halloween candy in the house, it’s pretty much a gorge-fest until Valentine’s Day. And if you are going to eat four times your weight in food this holiday season, why not make it really good food? So I am re-running this fantastic pumpkin pie from the master of horror, Vincent Price. We made this pie two years ago on Halloween for the Vincent Price Cookalong, and it was seriously a pumpkin pie revelation. This is the pie I am making for this Thanksgiving, and you should, too. It is really a great pie and very simple to make. This is also appropriate since Vincent and Mary Price’s cookbook masterpiece, A Treasury of Great Recipes was recently republished. To celebrate, Jenny at Silverscreen Suppers had a Treasury Cookalong, which I was happy to make Crab Puffs for. If you are interested to see what everyone else cooked up, you can check out Jenny’s post here!
Well, since tomorrow is Halloween we thought we would do things up right around here and make a recipe from Vincent Price! And yes, it is because the Vincent Price Cookalong is going to be this Monday, November 4th. We are pretty excited around here, and so we decided to celebrate with pie.
Vincent Price’s pumpkin pie, to be exact.
AuthorRetroRuth
From Come Into The Kitchen Cook Book, Mary and Vincent Price, 1969
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
If making your own pie shell, make the pie shell with a high scalloped edge (*Ruth's Note: Or use a deep-dish pie plate), refrigerate for several hours.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
In a large bowl (with a pouring lip if you have one) combine the pumpkin with the eggs, then the cream, sugar, salt and spices. Blend well and pour into the chilled pie shell.
Bake for 15 mins, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 50-65 minutes more, or until knife inserted in center of the pie comes out with only a few flecks clinging to it.
Chill before serving.
Yield: Makes about 8 servings.
Ingredients
Directions
If making your own pie shell, make the pie shell with a high scalloped edge (*Ruth's Note: Or use a deep-dish pie plate), refrigerate for several hours.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
In a large bowl (with a pouring lip if you have one) combine the pumpkin with the eggs, then the cream, sugar, salt and spices. Blend well and pour into the chilled pie shell.
Bake for 15 mins, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 50-65 minutes more, or until knife inserted in center of the pie comes out with only a few flecks clinging to it.
Chill before serving.
Yield: Makes about 8 servings.
Notes
Now, I have to admit there isn’t actually anything creepy or spooky about this pumpkin pie. Unless you don’t like mace. Then it’s pretty terrifying.
Actually, for me it was pretty scary. It turns out I need to improve my reading skills, because I had NO IDEA this recipe called for mace instead of cinnamon. None. Until I was making the recipe. Measuring the spices, actually.
“Oh, son of a…”
“What? Did you cut yourself?”
“No, I’m just an idiot. This pie doesn’t have any cinnamon in it. It has mace instead.”
“Wait..what?”
“I need mace for the pie.”
“You’re going to…mace…the pie?”
“No. I need mace the spice for the pie. Instead of cinnamon.”
“What the heck is that?”
“It’s like this weird little covering from around nutmeg, all ground up.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought you had finally lost it and you were going to mace the pie.”
So it was a late night trip to the store for me, where I purchased a $10 container of ground mace. Yippee.
On the positive side, this is the first time I’ve ever made a pumpkin pie without cinnamon. Also, this is the first time I’ve made a pumpkin pie without evaporated milk. Up until this point I had just been cranking out the recipe on the back of the Libby’s can every year at Thanksgiving.
Interestingly, this pie was much, much more orange than my normal pie. Probably because mace is considerably lighter in color than cinnamon!
“So, what’s this going to taste like?”
“I have no clue. You’d better get tasting!”
“Put the mace in my face.”
“This is pretty good.”
The Verdict: Really Good
The flavor of mace was strong and spicy, but not too strong. We didn’t even actually miss the cinnamon, as the mace has the same sort of spicy taste as cinnamon. The pie had a great, silky texture, much lighter than pies made with evaporated milk. Overall a really good pie, and not scary at all. Unless, of course, you are a pumpkin.
Aww, just like grandma used to make!
Just bought the ingredients to make this for Thanksgiving…thankfully I only had to pay $5 for the mace :-). Your website inspired me to find an old jello recipe to take to a party tonight. Fruit Cocktail ! Mayo ?!?!! Nuts !! Can’t wait to see how it comes out.
I think we’re going to use this recipe this year but, as usual, we’ll substitute butternut squash for the pumpkin. Butternut squash, for some reason, makes a better “pumpkin” pie than the fairly tasteless pumpkins you can get. I’m really interested to see how the mace thing works out. I’ve got my fingers crossed. (We usually use the Libby’s recipe, too. But no canned pumpkin).
Made this pie for our Thanksgiving this year. Everybody loved it!
I make these pies for Halloween and Thanksgiving and whenever. Always in pairs (2 pies per can of pumpkin). I tend to use the frozen Marie Calendar crusts, mostly because I am both lazy and in a hurry. This recipe is why I bought the re-release of Price’s Come Into The Kitchen Cookbook and gave it to everyone in the family that knows which is the working end of a kitchen knife.
This pie is always a success. Hands down.