mini pumpkin pies for thanksgiving

Still enamored with the flower-shaped tart crusts from my two previous posts (see mini blueberry cheesecake tarts and mini chocolate cream tarts). for Thanksgiving last year I decided to make little mini pumpkin pies with the same shaped tart crusts, except this time with pie crust dough instead of chocolate wafer cookie dough. We were planning on driving down to LA to spend Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family, so I thought these little portable mini pies would be perfect to make ahead and transport!

For the crust I used my go-to all butter pie crust recipe (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), which I chilled and then rolled out to about 1/8 inch thick. Then I used a flower-shaped cookie cutter to stamp out each mini crust.

Then I fit them into my ungreased cupcake tins, and put them in the fridge to chill.

While the crusts were chilling, I start on the pumpkin pie filling, which included canned pumpkin pie, evaporated milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, salt, and eggs.

Then I filled my chilled mini crusts and then baked them at 350F until the crust was golden brown and the filling was just set and still a little bit jiggly.

I let them cool before removing them from the cupcake tins and then chilling them overnight to let the filling set even more.

I just love the way the little flower-shaped crusts look, plus they fit into the cupcake tins perfectly!

Thanksgiving with my family was super fun, we ate under an outdoor gazebo and we stuffed ourselves until our stomachs were uncomfortably full! The evening ended with a kids dance-off and lots of goofy selfies! Happy Thanksgiving!

hello kitty pumpkin pie

I can't believe that Thanksgiving is only a week and a half away! What better time than to make this adorable Hello Kitty pumpkin pie? While I've made this pie several times (and even have made it into little mini pumpkin tartlets, like these Hello Kitty strawberry rhubarb ones), somehow this is the first time I'm sharing it! You can also find it in my new book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!

I start with a delicious, buttery, flaky crust, tucked into a 9-inch tart pan.

After using a rolling pin to cut off off the excess crust, I made a quick pumpkin pie filling, with just the right amount of spice, and baked the pie until just done in the center.

To decorate, I rolled out the excess pie dough scraps and cut out little Hello Kitty shapes with a cookie cutter, then baked them until golden.

Then place them on top of your baked pumpkin pie, and you have yourself one adorable pie! You can find this recipe and all new photos in my new book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!

Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!

thanksgiving pumpkin pie with hand-turkey cutout

Remember those Thanksgiving art projects you used to make in school, where you cut out the shape of your hand onto construction paper, or made a hand print with paint, and then turned it into a turkey? Something like this?

Well that was my inspiration for this pumpkin pie! (The hand print above was made by my 9-month old son at daycare!) I actually saw this somewhere on Pinterest, and just couldn't get the idea out of my head! So this pie was among the desserts that I made for this year's Thanksgiving dinner.

I started out by making my favorite all-butter pie crust, and fitted it into a 10-inch pie pan. I trimmed the excess dough from the edges of the pan, and crimped the edges with my fingers. Then I filled it with a simple pumpkin filling spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, and baked it until the crust was golden and the filling was set. Sadly, the crust shrank while baking in the oven, thus the slightly embarrassing edges!

With the trimmings of pie dough, I rolled it out and used a toothpick to mark the shape of my almost-four year old daughter's little hand, and then (without her hand there) I used a paring knife to cut out the shape.

I made sure to include the turkey's beak, eye, and feet!

Then I baked it on a cookie sheet at 375F for about 10 minutes until it turned golden brown.

Again, the crust cutout shrank (maybe I'm over-rolling my pie dough?) so I ended up with a teeny tiny hand turkey! But that's okay, a miniature turkey is just as cute!

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

two pumpkin thanksgiving desserts

For Thanksgiving this year, I wanted to try something other than my usual apple pie and pumpkin pie.  So I thought I'd try two different takes on pumpkin pie - a chocolate pumpkin tart, and a pumpkin cheesecake.  Unfortunately, both experiments were not entirely successful. :(

For the chocolate pumpkin tart, I found a recipe at Everyday Food that looked simple and tasty.  It had a chocolate wafer cookie crust (or, Oreos in my case), a layer of melted semi-sweet chocolate spread over that, and then a layer of pumpkin pie.

 

While the tart tasted good, the crust was way too crumbly and fell apart when serving (perhaps it needed more melted butter to hold it together?)  And the pumpkin pie layer was very thin compared to a regular pumpkin pie.

As for the pumpkin cheesecake, also from Everyday Food, the recipe called for 4 bars of cream cheese, but thinking I'd try to make it lighter, I substituted 2 bars of cream cheese with plain yogurt instead.  (In my defense, my usual cheesecake recipe calls for 2 bars of cream cheese plus 1 1/2 pints of sour cream ... and I've read that you can substitute plain yogurt for sour cream ... thus the yogurt instead of the cream cheese).  Major fail!  While the outermost area of the cheesecake was still tasty, the middle was way too soft - probably because of all the moisture from the yogurt.

In addition, the recipe said to only spread the graham cracker crust on the bottom of the springform pan, but for some reason I decided to pack some onto the sides of the pan too.  I'm not sure why I did it but I regret it, because when I unmolded the cheesecake the sides were really ugly, craggly and uneven.  (I'm not even going to include a picture of the unmolded cheesecake, I'm too embarrassed!)

I think I'll try making the pumpkin cheesecake again for Christmas this year, and this time I'm going to just follow the recipe!