Boris Portnoy's Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Adapted from Boris Portnoy
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This recipe accompanies our You’re Doing It All Wrong video with pastry chef Boris Portnoy. This is his approach, but he encourages everyone to experiment with the spices to suit your personal preferences. Boris’s pumpkin pie is a bit spicy, so if you think you might like something more tame for Thanksgiving, drop the pepper and the citrus peels.
Game plan: This recipe makes enough pie dough for 2 pie crusts and 1/2 cup of the spice mix. Wrap the extra dough tightly in plastic wrap, store the spice mix in an airtight container, and freeze both for up to 1 month.
The CHOW test kitchen retested and updated this recipe in 2011. We converted the metric measurements to standard and made the directions easier to follow. All of the ingredients and the method remain the same.
INGREDIENTS
For the pumpkin purée:
- 1 (5-pound) pumpkin
For the pie crust:
- 2 sticks unsalted butter (8 ounces), at room temperature
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted, plus more for dusting the work surface
- 1/4 cup cornstarch, sifted
- 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
For the spice mix:
- 1 (1-1/2-inch) cinnamon stick
- 1 star anise pod
- 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon juniper berries
- 1/2 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns
- 1/4 teaspoon cardamom pods
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 cup dried lemon peel
- 1/4 cup dried orange peel
For the pumpkin filling:
- 2 large eggs
- 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
For the walnut–brown sugar topping:
- 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- Pinch fine salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/4 stick), cut into 4 pieces and chilled
- 3/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
INSTRUCTIONS
For the pumpkin purée:
- Heat the oven to 200°F and arrange a rack in the middle.
- Completely wrap the pumpkin in foil, place it on a baking sheet, and bake until very soft, 6 to 8 hours.
- When cool enough to handle, remove the foil and break the pumpkin open with your hands. Using a spoon, scoop the flesh into a large bowl, discarding the seeds and skin. Place the pumpkin flesh in a food processor and process until smooth, about 2 minutes. (Alternatively, you can use a stick blender to process the pumpkin.) You will need 2 cups of purée. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator until ready to use.
For the pie crust:
- Place the butter and sugar in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on medium-high speed until pale in color and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and mix until incorporated. Turn the mixer off and add the flour, cornstarch, and salt. Mix on low speed, gradually increasing the speed to medium, until the dough just comes together, about 1 minute.
- Divide the dough in half and form each half into a disk. Wrap each disk tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. You will only need 1 disk for this recipe. Refrigerate or freeze the second disk for another use.
- Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Lightly flour a clean work surface and roll out 1 disk of dough into a 12-inch round approximately 1/4 inch thick. Line a 9-1/2-inch deep-dish pie plate with the dough, trimming within 1 inch of the plate. Fold the excess dough under and pinch to create a decorative edge. Place in the refrigerator while the oven finishes heating up, at least 15 minutes.
- Line the crust with a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil large enough to overhang the edge by 1 inch, then fill it with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the crust is set and light brown, about 20 minutes. Remove the pie weights and parchment paper or foil and continue baking until the crust is dry to the touch, about 8 to 10 minutes more. Place on a rack and cool completely.
For the spice mix:
- Place the cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves, coriander, juniper berries, Sichuan peppercorns, and cardamom seeds in a small frying pan over medium heat and toast, shaking the pan occasionally, until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Let cool completely.
- Transfer to a spice or coffee grinder and grind into a fine powder. Place in a small bowl, add the ground ginger and citrus peels, and stir to combine; set aside.
For the pumpkin filling:
- Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle.
- Place the eggs in a large bowl and whisk until the yolks are broken up. Add the condensed milk, 2 cups of the pumpkin purée, and 2 3/4 teaspoons of the spice mix and whisk until smooth. (Store the remaining spice mix in an airtight container in the freezer.)
- Pour the pumpkin mixture into the prepared pie crust. Bake until the filling is set in the middle and the edges are puffed, about 50 to 60 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, make the walnut–brown sugar topping.
For the walnut–brown sugar topping:
- Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle.
- Place the brown sugar, flour, and salt in a medium bowl and stir to combine. Using a pastry blender or your fingers, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until reduced to pea-size pieces. Add the walnuts and toss with your fingers to combine.
- Squeeze clumps of the mixture between your fingers to form irregularly shaped pieces about the size of a cashew. Turn the mixture out onto a baking sheet. Bake until golden brown and the nuts are toasted, about 8 minutes. Place the pan on a rack and scrape up the streusel from the pan with a flat spatula, then spread again into an even layer. Cool completely and sprinkle evenly over the pie.
The pie crust is pate sucre, not ordinary pastry. Pate sucre always has eggs - they're needed to bind the sugary dough, which doesn't hold together as well as a more floury dough would. They also add richness. Don't leave them out, the crust will fall apart. It does look a lot, but you can freeze the excess easily or just halve the recipe. You will never get such accurate results using volumetric measurements as by weighing in grams.
The crust recipe is ridiculous. 4 sticks of butter? 1 3/4 cup of sugar? I weighed the ingredients with my digital scale and then used standard American volumetrics to get the amounts. Pie crusts don't have eggs. Cobbler/biscuit crust doesn't have eggs. Why does this call for eggs? It isn't a crust so much as a cookie. For the person with the browning problem, reduce the amount of egg, or leave it out entirely.
Well, I was having a hard time finding a whole pumpkin here in Japan, for some reason only cut pieces were being sold at a way too expensive price, but at last I found a bunch of whole pumpkins and I got them all.
First of all, the amount of crust: the amounts called for above, almost 2 lbs of flour, about 3/4 of a lb of butter, etc. etc. makes a tremendous amount of dough!! I think enough for 4 or more 8 inch crusts!! And my largest bowl almost would not hold it all, must less allow me to mix it. But I made it and I put it into a brick shape as stated above. Next time, I may just make half.
I LOVE this crust...not too sweet, easy to work with if you take it out of the refrig several hours in advance. I use those French tart pans that come in two pieces and this crust WILL stand up on its own after baking. And you can roll it out rather thinly if that is what you like. I like working with grams as you get the correct amounts with little or no fuss.
I made the spice mix, but I couldn't find any already dried orange peel or lemon peel. I had to make my own. I had no idea how many lemons or oranges to use. But I used the peel from 3 lemons and two oranges, and dried them myself. I made the spice mix exactly as stated above. It is really nice in the cooked pumpkin pie, sort of spicy and orangey all at once.
One nice thing about the crust, is that it will cut very nicely, it won't come apart or chip after being cooked and it holds up well out of the pie plate, not getting soggy even after a day or two. And if you do make the extra bits into leaves and shapes, do add knife cuts for the veins of the leaves. When they are baked, they open up a bit and show up very nicely. I would add a bit of sugar to the top of the decorative leaves next time, or cinnamon sugar!
Also, with the walnut topping. I made it, but in one pie (I did several), I put the nuts on top of the crust and added the pumpkin mixture on top of them. That was very tasty!!
All in all, this is a great pie and a great crust. I am going to make a chocolate pie using this crust!
Oh, I was able to get dried orange peel at an Asian grocery
I'm afraid I get totally confused with metrics. American, naturally. We should learn it but I'm no spring chicken. I have to go to a website that converts measurements.
But this is a great tasting recipe!
Using this recipe as a guide, I ended up with the best pumpkin pie I've ever made.
Using REAL pumpkin makes a world of difference and tastes significantly better than canned pumpkin.
However, I didn't follow the recipe exactly. I only used powdered spices and left out the juniper berries, cardamom and peppercorns and added chinese 5-spice and nutmeg.
Instead of a flour based crust I made a graham cracker crust.
Overall, very easy to make and with excellent results.
This pie was almost perfect. Making the homemade pumpkin was easy and created a smooth, but not wet, consistency. What I didn't like, is that the crust got a little too dark for my liking. I had to put my pie shield on the crust about 20 minutes into the baking, but it still got very dark, and tasted nearly burnt. I used an 8" metal pie plate, and not pyrex. The recipe didn't specify, so I figured it wouldn't matter. Does it?
I would like to know if there is any way to adjust the recipe/pie plate usage/oven temperature/baking time in order to get a lighter crust? Should I pre-bake the crust for less time? Bake the filled pie for less time or at a lower temp? Any suggestions to improve on this step would be appreciated. In any case, I will definitely make this pie again and again.
to address the spices, you do roast the whole star anise, then grind it, also i peal the pod of the cardamom to release the seeds, then gride them.
to address the measurements: yes, this makes more spice mix then you need, so feel free to make less of the mix, make alot of pumpkin pies. For me recipes are a guide and the reason i use the metric sysytem is because you can see the ratios much more clearly this way. (1 part this, 2 parts that). as far as the crust this will make at lease two pies, and this is a short crust; it will not get stuck to the pan and this freezes well for the next time you want to make any other pie. I hope that you enjoy cooking and feeding others.
Also, for the cardamon, do you remove the seeds from the pod or do you grind the pod as well?
I have star anise - do you roast it and then grind up the whole star?
I also felt like this was a massive amount of butter and flour. It even felt like it was more than two 9-inch crusts, since the pie is only a bottom-crust pie and has the walnut topping. I will complete it as is and see how it goes.
OK, since no one else has said it - nothing to complain about here, Mr. Portnoy!
About the crust::
I contacted the chef and he confirmed that the amount of flour and butter was enough for two 9 inch crusts!
Since I would most likely only make one pie at a time, I would make the crust mixture and then divide it into two bricks and chill those, maybe freezing the second brick... I guess that would be okay with the egg in it...
My great grandmother and grandmother had a coal stove and we always baked the pumpkin whole until it slumped over on the cooking sheet. Usually overnight with the leftover heat from our last meal of the day. We would then separate the pumpkin flesh from the seeds and put the flesh thru a food mill. We used lots of molasses and heavy cream and fresh eggs. I still make it the same way with small sweet Sugar Baby pumpkins. I might try some different spice combo in one of my pies this year.
I thought that using Chinese 5-Spice Powder in pumpkin pie was novel... I drooled when I saw the recipe for the spice mixture -- what a spicy pumpkin pie!
I don't know if I'd go so far as to add Sichuan (Ma-La) peppercorns, but I'd certainly add some cayenne. I'm going to try the filling, adding a little molasses; and use my crust recipe.
About the crust, I just used another crust recipe with cold butter and ice water, like how it's normally done. Does anybody know why this recipe calls for cornstarch and a huge amount of room temperature butter?
About the above "condensed milk" question:
I think it must be "sweetened condensed milk" because there is no sugar added to the pumpkin.
Does "condensed milk" here mean "sweetened condensed milk" or "evaporated milk"? Thanks for the advice!
Personally, I like metric measurements. They are much more accurate and easy to so. I have a digital scale and use it often. I live and cook in Japan, but I have cookbooks from America and England as well as China and Japan, so I do both. Japan is totally metric.
Maybe Europeans don't use metric for small amounts, but it is easy:
you put your bowl on the digital scale, set the weight to zero (which is easy to do with most digital scales) and add the spices, setting the weight back to zero after the addition of each spice (if you don't mind combining them).
I have a question about the amount of flour and butter, boy, this seems like enough for two pies. Is it correct? Can anyone contact the chef to confirm? Also, there seems to be no mention of the size of the pie pan... 9 inch? 10 inch? 10 inch deep dish? I think for the butter, I would just use a one pound package of butter. Would the missing 30 grams be that much of a problem, I wonder??
I like the idea behind the spice mix and I want to give it a try.
This recipe sounded yummy so I decided to give it a go. Here's my feedback. While the result from following the recipe wasn't perfect, it tasted great. What I write may sound critical but please keep featuring recipes like this! Adding the Sichuan peppercorns to this recipe was a brilliant idea.
- I took the seeds out before putting the pumpkin in the oven. It would have been a nightmare if I had left the seeds in. Cooking the pumpkin over night worked great.
- With regards to the spice mix, tablespoons and teaspoons would have worked better to measure the spices. Who measures 1 gram? I'm in Europe and we don't use metric to measure small quantities. That said, it ends up being a lot of spice mix only to use basically 3 tablespoons. Also, I didn't want to heat up all the spices before grinding when I was only going to use a limited amount. Heating spices and grinding spices shortens the spices' shelf-life. Instead of doing double damage, I heated up only the amount of spice the recipe called for.
Dried Orange and Lemon rind? I'm not aware of anyone who sells this. Frankly I wasn't going to zest and wait for the zest to dry. I added fresh zest and it worked just fine.
I'm planning to use the left over spice mix for mulled wine? Any other ideas?
As for the pie shell, 480 grams of butter sounded wrong and sure enough the pastry melted into the pie pan. I always use a classic french pastry recipe and I should have stuck to that. Futhermore 'the brick' was entirely too much dough for the pie and topping cookies.
finally, the topping recipe was easy and so yummy that I could eat that by itself.
If anyone has a chance to refine the measurements on this please make a post.
I've never baked with dried citrus peels before. How do I prepare the peels? Do I grind them? Can I use zest instead?
This looks really good I am going to try it.
really informative and made me want to bake!! looks like a wonderful creamy custardy pie that everyone would fawn over
How about removing seeds before baking?
I'm all for metric, but somehow at least for an American audience, calling for 480 grams of butter when the package size available for home cooks is universally 454 grams (actually, the "1 lb" package of land-o-lakes in my fridge says 453??!) seems a bit contrarian! The idea of slow-roasting the pumpkin whole is interesting though-- might just trade the difficulty of cutting a raw one for the hassle of separating seeds from the softened cooked flesh, but seems worth a shot!