Pumpkin Pie

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Beat the eggs until frothy. Mix in the
sugars and the flour. Mix in the spices and the salt. Mix in the pumpkin.
Mix in the melted butter. Finally, mix in the milk.

Pour the mix into the pie crust and bake at 450 degrees F. for 15 minutes.
Decrease heat to 375 degrees F. and bake for an additional 45 minutes.
Remove the pie from the oven and set it out to cool.

NOTES:

* A Pumpkin Pie with flour — This is my mother’s recipe for her
traditional Thanksgiving dinner pumpkin pie. It is different from most
other pumpkin pie recipes in that flour and brown sugar are used in the
batter. Even my wife, who is not a big pumpkin pie fan, thought this was a
yummy pie.

When my parents first got married, every pumpkin pie my mom made for my dad
was rejected with the comment “it’s not like mother used to make.” She
even tried to use his mother’s recipe, but she could not follow it: his
mother used ordinary kitchen utensils for measuring devices (like a teacup
for a “cup,” a real table spoon for a “tablespoon,” etc.). She finally
found a recipe that looked similar to grandma’s. Through the years she has
altered it slightly to make the pie even more tastier.

* Don’t be surprised if the pie rises slightly. It will go down again
after it cools.

* Make sure you get just pumpkin. Don’t use a can of “pumpkin pie mix”
instead! If you were very ambitious, you could gut a pumpkin yourself for
this recipe, but I have never had the time or courage to do that.

* You can buy a pie shell crust or you can make your own. Certainly, the
results are better when you make your own.

* Light brown sugar can be used instead of dark, but the result isn’t as
good.

: Difficulty: easy to moderate.
: Time: 20 minutes preparation, 1 hour cooking, plus desired cooling time.
: Precision: measure the ingredients, especially the spices.

: William LeFebvre
: Department of Computer Science, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA
: phil@Rice.edu