Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie

Giant pumpkin on the vine

by Cat, Sept 2007 (photo, right, from Wikimedia Commons)

See also: Holiday Pumpkin Pie

This amazing pie is great at Hallowe’en or Thanksgiving. It serves 8. I highly recommend making your own apple butter, as most commercial apple butter is sweetened with HFCS. I don’t have a recipe on my site for apple butter, but here are some other online recipes:

• Pick Your Own: Apple butter (starts with applesauce and includes canning (1))
• Eastern European Food: Apple Butter (starts with fresh apples; makes 1 pint (2))
• Eating richly (blog): Apple Butter Your Grandma Would Be Proud Of  starts with fresh apples; makes 3 – 5 pints (3))

Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie

I’ve adapted this recipe from one in Good Housekeeping magazine, October 2007 (4). The online version (5) is slightly different.

I like to use my whole wheat or spelt pie crust dough for this pie. I have not yet moved my pie crust recipes, so you may use my traditional crust recipe sized for a 10″ quiche pan or 9″ deep dish pan, included with the Holiday Pumpkin Pie recipe.

Ingredients & Equipment:

• dough for one 10 inch pie crust (see my whole grain pie crust recipe included with the Holiday Pumpkin Pie recipe)
• 1 cup canned pumpkin (or cooked and puréed pumpkin; see Baked Winter Squash for cooking instructions, but skip the sweetener and spices; when ready, scoop out the pumpkin meat and puree in blender)
• 1 cup apple butter
• ⅔ to ¾ cup Rapadura sugar, or Maple syrup (if using maple syrup, use only ¼ cup plus 1 Tbsp milk)
• ½ tsp unrefined sea salt
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• ⅔ cup fresh cream or canned milk
• ⅓ cup raw whole milk (reduce to 1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp if using maple syrup)
• large bowl
• small bowl
• 9″ deep dish pie pan

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400⁰ F.
2. Roll out crust and fit into a 9″ deep dish pie pan.  Crimp edges upward, for extra depth.
3. In large bowl, combine pumpkin, apple butter, sweetener, salt and cinnamon and mix well.
4. Beat eggs in small bowl; add canned milk or cream, and whole milk and stir to combine.  Stir into pumpkin mixture until well mixed.
5. Pour filling into shell and bake 45 – 50 minutes until tests done (a knife inserted into the middle of the pie comes out clean).
6. Cool in pan set on wire rack.

References:

1. Pick Your Own: Apple butter (starts with applesauce, and includes canning instructions): pickyourown.org/applebutter.htm
2. Eastern European Food: Apple Butter (makes 1 pint; starts with fresh apples): easteuropeanfood.about.com/od/fruits/r/applebutter.htm
3. Eating richly (blog): Apple Butter Your Grandma Would Be Proud Of  (makes 3 – 5 pints; starts with fresh apples): eatingrichly.com/11/apple-butter-recipe-your-grandma-would-be-proud-of
4. Good Housekeeping magazine, October 2007
5. Good Houskeeping.com recipe: goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/apple-butter-pumpkin-pie