Impromptu Pumpkin & Candied Walnut Pie

This impromptu pumpkin and candied walnut pie was a journey in improvisation in the kitchen. This is how it came to be. Earlier this week I wrote about my disastrous lunchtime grocery shopping trip last Wednesday. One of the ill-begotten goods I picked up on my ill-fated trip was a bag of pre-cut pumpkin. It sat in the fridge until Sunday when I knew I had to use it or lose it.

My first thought was to use it in the stuffed peppers I planned on making, but I thought those little pumpkin cubes deserved more. They deserved to be the star of the show.

I remembered that I had some leftover mascarpone and cream cheese frosting from a batch of red velvet cupcakes I made a week ago and inspiration took hold – I’d make a creamy pumpkin pie. I had everything on hand to make an all butter pie crust and a bag of walnuts in the pantry would offer the perfect textural counterpoint.

For the pie crust I followed the basic proportions I found in a recipe on Pinterest with a few adjustments – this was my recipe:

Pie crust ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 250 grams salted butter
• 4 tbsp ice water

I’ve made pie crust a few times in the past. I’m far from a master at it but I learn a little bit each time. I’ve found that using a mixer (what’s called a kitchen robot in Europe lol) with a wire whisk attachment helps to create that crumbly texture without melting the butter (if using fingers) or exhausting yourself (if using the fork method.) 

So I pulled out my trusty little robot gifted to me by a departing American expat couple and got to work measuring out the flour, butter, salt and sugar into the mixing bowl. I used a knife to roughly mix the butter and flour so that the butter wouldn’t just get stuck in the blades of the wire whisk attachment. Finally when it was more or less incorporated I plugged my robot in and hit go. Nothing happened. Then I remembered that the power was out.