The Perfect Pumpkin Pie
Every year, I have difficulties getting my pumpkin pie to come out with exactly the consistency that I want—it’s always too goopy or the pie shell is underbaked or the pie shell is overbaked or it cracks too much or the vibes are just off. Every year, I also have selective amnesia and forget the pie problems I had last Thanksgiving. Then, I freak out when the same perpetual problems arise. This year had more pie problems than most.
When I went to start the pies the night before Thanksgiving, the condensed milk we had was majorly expired. Like, expired enough that I was worried to cook with it and murder an entire family. So, the pies were punted to Thanksgiving morn. While I checked on a friend’s cats, my wife went to the store and came back with…sweetened condensed milk. Turns out, sweetened condensed milk is nothing like the condensed milk the pie recipe calls for. So, I journeyed back out to the store along with all the other harried last minute cooks to find a solution.
Vons was sold out of condensed milk. The new Sprouts in Echo Park was sold out of all condensed milk except an oat milk based alternative. Sure. So, back to the kitchen to bake. I mixed up the filling while my wife tried to experiment with pre-baking the pie shells in order for them to not be as raw as usual. It seemed we were back on track, but the pie shells had shrunk a bit in the oven and were under sized for how much filling there was. They were hard to balance. Too hard to balance. Emily poured pumpkin pie filling all over the bottom of our oven while trying to put the pies in.
We had no time to pivot. The oven was 375 degrees and now filled with bubbling orange liquid with an hour to go before we had to leave. We had to just go with it, bake the pies in the smoky hellscape that once was our oven. The smoke alarm went off three times, even with all our windows open. The cats were not happy. But we had pies! And no firefighters came!
I didn’t end up having any pie till our second Thanksgiving meal of the day. Thinking about how much my dad loved pie, I started crying. I put a big bite in my mouth and declared through tears… “This tastes like shit.”
I was a tad too hard on the pie. When I had it the next day (its always better the next day after it sets), I took back my previous assessment. It was pretty good. Good enough that I think I’ve forgotten about how much Emily scrubbed the oven or how the house smelled weird for 48 hours.
I can’t wait to make pie again in a year’s time. I mean, how hard can it be? I’ve done it for years.
