Sunday, November 29, 2009

YWPWT: Pumpkin Pie with a Twist

It finally happened! It was my turn to choose a theme for the pie-baking group, You Want Pies With That?



But, oh, the difficulty of deciding. You would think this would be an easy task. You would be wrong.

After several false starts, I finally made up my mind. In honor of the holidays, I chose Pumpkin Pie with a Twist. You see, I always make my favorite pumpkin pie recipe every Thanksgiving. It's a dark and mouth-tingling spicy pie, which I dearly love. Every year, though, I wistfully imagine myself breaking out of the box and trying a new version, but it never happens. So, I figured if I challenged myself, along with everyone else, there would be a bunch of new pumpkin pies to try next year.

Meanwhile, as the month of November progressed, quite a few alternative pumpkin pies began showing up in blogland. I know that the YWPWT pie bakers will be ever so clever, so I'm really anticipating the results.


For my entry, I "baked" a Pumpkin Ice Cream Pie.

First, I prepared a 9" baked pie shell.

Next, I spread one pint of softened ginger ice cream on the bottom of the shell and placed the pie in the freezer to harden the ice cream.



While the pie was in the freezer, I prepare the next layer.

I combined 1 cup of canned pumpkin, 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon cloves, 1/4 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon ginger, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. (Told you I like it spicy!)



To that mixture, I folded in 1 cup of whipped whipping cream.



I spread the pumpkin/whipped cream mixture over the frozen ginger ice cream, then returned the pie to the freezer.


After freezing the pie for several hours, I removed it from the freezer and let it soften for about 5-10 minutes.




The end result was a frozen, spicy, delicious pumpkin pie with a surprise layer of ginger ice cream on the bottom, a nice way to end a rather traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Over the next few days, I will be looking forward to seeing the other pumpkin pie variations created by my fellow bloggers at YWPWT. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to choose!

6 comments:

Patricia @ ButterYum said...

It's really hard to go wrong when Haagen Dazs is involved!

:)
ButterYum

Megan said...

I didn't know it was your turn to choose - I would have participated!

Anytime pumpkin pie is involved, I'm in. :)

Sara said...

Wow, this looks amazing! I love the idea of a frozen pumpkin pie, and both layers sound delish! :)

Chats the Comfy Cook said...

I love the idea of ice cream in the pie. That has to be a winning combination.

Helen said...

I love the layers- the contrast of color, flavor and texture. I also really like how sculptural and free-form your crust is; a gorgeous pie!

Jacque said...

That does sound wonderful! and it would be a nice, chilly counterpoint to all of that warm Thanksgiving food. Nice work!

By the way, the YWPWT voting is still open for this month's winner. I urge you to enter your vote (hopefully that will break the 3 way tie we've got going on right now, LOL).