Maple Pumpkin Pie with Candied Ginger

Eren and I first made this pie 8 years ago. Every time the weather turns cold we remember this recipe, and yearn for the fall that we lived in the same town and baked pie after pie. I think it is everything pumpkin pie should be: not too sweet, perfect custard texture, creamy, and very pumpkin-y. The maple adds this really nice richness without being too sugary, and the ginger is amazing. And we got to make it this weekend! Pie recipe is here at Epicurian: Ginger Maple Pumpkin Pie. The "pumpkin" we used was actually a kabocha squash that was a super rich dark orange color.

The crust we used was another Baking Illustrated recipe. Baking Illustrated is like the science version of cooking - they test every recipe (ever seen America's Test Kitchen? this is them) with different ingredients to come up with the fail-proof perfect one. According to science. Kind of fascinating.

Pie Dough for Prebaked Pie Shell (1 single 9" pie)
1 1/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1/2 t. salt
1 T. sugar
3 T. vegetable shortening, chilled
4 T. unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/4" pieces
4-5 T. ice water

Process flour, salt and sugar in food processor until combined. Add shortening and process 10 sec until texture is like sand. Scatter butter over flour mix and pulse to a course mixture (10 - 1 second pulses). Turn the mixture into a medium sized bowl. Sprinkle 4 T. ice water over mixture and use a folding motion to mix. Press down on dough until it sticks together, adding 1 more T. of water if dough is not coming together. Flatten dough to 4" disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least an hour or up to 2 days. *I have made this crust without a food processor: grate butter into flour mixture with a cheese grater and cut it in using one of those cutter-inner tools.

Remove dough from fridge (if in longer than one hour, let stand at room temp until malleable). Roll the dough on a lightly floured work surface, or between two sheets of parchment to a 12" circle. Transfer to a 9" pie plate. Trim the edges to 1/2 beyond the pan and fold it under itself. Refrigerate until firm (40 mintues) and then freeze 20 minutes. (*Note, I don't have a 9" pie pan so I used a bigger tart pan - no prob. Also, I skipped the refrigerator/freezing step and all was fine.) Preheat oven to 375. Press foil to chilled crust (make sure to cover edge) and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake 25-30 minutes and carefully remove weights. Continue baking 5-6 minutes for a partially baked crust, or until golden brown for a fully baked crust (12 minutes more).

Using a partially baked crust, we filled it with the custard and baked it according to the pie recipe. Because of my odd pan, the edge was a little too low, so it could not hold as much of the custard. Alas. Still delicious.