Store-bought pie crusts are great for someone just learning how to cook. Making your own pastry can be challenging for a beginner cook. For this Pumpkin Pie recipe, you can just purchase a ready-made pastry crust from your grocer’s freezer. Do not defrost the pie crust. We are going to make the pumpkin filling and pour it right into the frozen crust.

The pumpkins shown above are part of my centerpiece arrangement. The pie is actually made with pumpkin from a can.

For the filling you will need:

• 1 15-oz can of pumpkin
• 1 14-oz can of sweetened condensed milk
• 2 eggs
• 3 teaspoons of Pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Description of the Ingredients

Canned pumpkin is already cooked and pureed (mashed) so all you have to do is open the can and it is ready to use.  Be sure to buy canned pumpkin and NOT pumpkin pie filling in a can.  (In the USA) canned pumpkin is not found in the canned vegetable aisle.  It is actually sold with all the baking products - right near the flour, sugar, and baking soda.  Who knew?

There is a HUGE difference between sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk. This recipe calls for sweetened condensed milk.

Evaporated milk has no added sugar and is slightly thicker and richer than regular milk.  (I used it to make my Pumpkin Soup and my Stove Top Mac and Cheese.)   Sweetened condensed milk is very thick and very sweet. They are not interchangeable ingredients.

Evaporated Milk and Sweetened Condensed Milk

Pumpkin Pie Spice is a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. It is easier and less expensive to buy one small jar of spice blend rather than four separate jars of spices. You can mix the leftover pumpkin pie spice with some sugar and sprinkle it on toast or cottage cheese. Or you could add it to Butternut Squash instead of cinnamon.

Let’s startcooking!

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Be careful — that’s a really HOT oven! It will take about 15 minutes for your oven to get that hot. You are only going to cook your pie for 15 minutes at that temperature. You’ll then turn the oven down to 350 degrees, and continue cooking the pie for about another 30 minutes.

Crack two eggs into a medium bowl. (Check to make sure there are no shells in the bowl!)

Add to the bowl the canned pumpkin, the sweetened condensed milk, the pumpkin pie spice, and the salt.

Whisk everything together. It should get really well combined and look like the picture below when it is ready to all pour into the pie shell.

Set the unbaked, frozen pie shell on a baking sheet with sides. This is going to make it much easier to lift the pie in and out of the oven.

Pour the filling into the frozen pie shell.

The filling is going to come almost to the top edge.

Immediately put the pie into the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes.

When the timer goes off, lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees and reset the timer for 30 minutes.

You will also need to cover the edges of the pie with tin foil. Otherwise they will get way too browned.

The way you check to see if the pie is ready to come out of the oven is to stick a knife into the pie about one inch in from the edge of the crust.

If the knife comes out clean, the pie is done. Depending on your oven you may need to continue cooking for an additional 5 minutes. Let the pie cool completely before serving it.  It will deflate slightly when cooled.

A great way to serve this pie is with a big dollop of fresh whipped cream, or a nice big squirt of cream from a can!

Enjoy!

You can view and print this recipe here.

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