Sweet pumpkin pie

A most beautiful recipe for pumpkin tart... One of the recipes I tried and will present to you using the Pumpkins I bought from Irene Korkou.

I will talk to you about Irene and her wonderful vegetables some other time but I guess I should just say that she cultivates the most wonderful pumpkins the likes of which you cannot easily find in Greece.
I bought 4 varieties from her and one of them was a beautiful small red one called Red Kuri and it's flesh tastes a bit like a chestnut and the texture of the flesh is silky and smooth which makes it great for turning it into a puree.

Robert asked me to make this desert as it is one of his favorites. I used a Martha Stewart recipe as the base of mine but I changed it a whole lot.
As you can see I do not blind bake the tart shell. I find that you do not need to do that in this recipe as it does not give anything extra but if you want to try it go ahead and do it! I won't mind.. :-)

Diffuculty: 2 of 3

Duration:40 minutes prep and 40 minutes baking

Serves:8

Ingredients

For the dough

150 g of plain flour (if you have it in the fridge an hour before making the recipe it is better)

10 g of sugar

3 g salt

125 g of very cold butter cut in cubes

60 g of very cold icy water

For the filling

450 g of pumpkin puree or roasted pupkin (net weight)

150 g of plain sugar

3 g of fine salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp dried ginger powder

2 pinches of clove

2 pinches all spice

2 pinches of hot pepper

1/2 a nutmeg grated very finely

300 g of single cream

3 medium eggs

Method

For the dough

In a bowl we add all the ingredients apart from water.

Using our fingers or two bench scrapers we "cut" the flour in the butter till the mixture resembles wet sand.

Add the water and mix with a plastic spoon into a ball.

Flatten it into a 10 cm diameter disk, wrap it in cling film and store it in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Using a bit of flour and a rolling pin we roll out the dough till it covers the bottom and the side of a 22 cm diameter tart pan. I used a 24 cm one so my pie turned out a bit thin... but oh well!

Place the pan in the fridge till we need it.

Preheat the oven at 200 Celsius

For the filling

In a pan we add the pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices.

Simmer for 5-7 minutes in medium heat.

Transfer the mixture to the blender, add the cream and blend till smooth.

Add the eggs one by one and blend.

Transfer the mixture in the tart pan and bake for 10 minutes.

Lower the heat at 170 and bake for another 20-30 minutes till just the center of the tart jiggles as you move the pan.

Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool down.

Place in the fridge till it is completely cold and serve with ice cream. I used Kaimaki that really worked very well!