Here's a coolThanksgivingparty trick: show up with a pumpkin pie—a creamy, gently spiced,platonic ideal of a pumpkin pie. Now tell everyone at the party this pumpkin pie contains no pumpkin.
Even if traditionalists want to chew you out for this blasphemy, they probably won't. Because this butternut squash pie (yes, that's what this pietrulyis) is better and, dare we say it, even more pumpkin-y than most canned pumpkin fillings—which are,as it turns out, are typically made with squash rather than pumpkin anyway.
Stella Parks, author ofBraveTart: Iconic American Desserts, explains that, "squash is...inside every can of 'America's Favorite Pumpkin' today. Though it's cleverly called the Dickinson pumpkin, botanically speaking the vegetable belongs toCucurbita moschata, a species that includes butternut squash, rather than true pumpkin."
So Parks ditches the can altogether and roasts a butternut squash for her "pumpkin" pie. It's a win-win, since real pumpkins are a pain in the butt, as they're hollow, tough, stringy and all-around hard to work with. And, Parks points out, squash also beats pumpkin with "more natural sweetness, less water, and creamier flesh."
With her "pumpkin" pie recipe, Parks also introduces us to the wonders ofhomemade sweetened condensed milk(her version takes about 1/6 of the time it takes to make a traditional recipe).
She also has an insanely straightforwardall-butter pastry crustin the book, which doesn't require any fancy techniques to deliver a tender, flaky, and hard-to-screw-up crust.
Those two gems, plus some roasted and pureed butternut, a bit of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, and just enough brown sugar to pull it all together, are the makings of the most pumpkin-y non-pumpkin pie you've ever tasted. Even pumpkin pietraditionalistswill have a hard time being mad at this one—seriously. And while you're testing the waters, may we suggest attempting ourno-turkey turkey?
