Laura's Pumpkin Pie

I have to start this post out with a disclaimer... I am the youngest of 6 kids, so there is no way that I could go through life without some quirks. It also means that everyone in my family was old enough to remember all the Laura stories. 

Before I jump into my quirky story I am excited to announce Pie week. November is all about Thanksgiving (not pre Christmas). When I think of Thanksgiving I think of pies, specifically pumpkin pie. I have some good surprises in store for you this week. I wont give away any clues since I have one more pie obstacle to hurdle...but it will end well :)

Ok now rewind to a time when I was 3 or 4 years old. We were at my grandparents house for Thanksgiving. It was dessert time and Grandma Norma was passing out pieces of pumpkin pie. She gave me the first piece of pie and took a lot of time to pick out that specific piece for me. After she passed out all the pieces, I noticed that I was the only one that didn't have a piece with chocolate on it. So I asked Grandma Norma about it.  I'm guessing that I wanted to switch pieces with her since hers looked like it had a lot of chocolate on it.  What did I get... a laugh from everyone at the table! ???? Now is when it comes to light that the pie is not covered with chocolate, but it is actually burnt. So Grandma Norma worked hard to get me a piece that wasn't burnt and she gave herself the most burnt piece.

This story comes up EVERY Thanksgiving. I will never live it down...but I have to admit I have always secretly thought that pumpkin pie would taste better with chocolate syrup. So now XX years later and when I have my own blog guess what? I can add some chocolate syrup!

Ok... I'm going to admit one more fetish growing up I was not a fan of pie crust.  Even though my mom makes an AWESOME pie crust, for a large portion of my life I would only eat the filling of a pie. Then I would ultimately throw away the pie shell, my poor parents. So since this is my childhood dream pie it didn't have regular pie crust. It had a vanilla wafer crust. Why vanilla wafers you may ask? Well obviously because they taste AWESOME and adult Laura had a box in the cupboard that she needed to use up.

Lastly this pie is why I love my husband so much. Yesterday morning I was in my jammies dreaming up this pie... and I turn to my husband and say could you draw a turkey out of chocolate syrup for me? He looks at me with the straightest face ever and says I think so. Then as I'm pulling the pie out of the oven he starts to research turkeys on the internet... and then he creates the cutest turkey ever. Wait a minute where did all of the turkey go.. oh yeah the pie looked great.. and had to be tried immediately... and Jim had to try a second piece. 

Ingredients

Pie Crust

35 vanilla wafers
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted

Filling

2 large eggs
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
1 cup 2% milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp cloves

Topping

Chocolate Syrup
1 candy corn

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Pulse the vanilla wafers until they are very fine in a food processor. Add the sugar and give the mixture a couple more pulses. Next add the melted butter. Pulse a few more time until the mixture starts to clump. Then put the crust mixture into the pie pan and press it so that it sits evenly in the pan.

For the filling start out by whisking the two eggs with your mixer. Than add the pumpkin and milk. Whisk again until they are all evenly combined. In a separate bowl mix the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Then add the sugary mixture to the pumpkin mixture. Combine everything with the mixer.

Pour the filling into the crust. Then put the pie in the oven and bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Then turn the temperature down to 350 degrees and back for an additional 40 - 50 minutes. A toothpick will come out dry when the pie is ready to come out.

Let the pie cool, and then decorate with chocolate syrup.

Eat and Enjoy!

The pie should be refrigerated.

This pie originally appeared on Laura's Baking Talent.

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Pumpkin Spice Kiss Cookies

Apple Orchard Bars