I got sent a free turkey.

Win.

Turkey is a Thanksgivingy food. Thanksgiving means pie. Pumpkin Pie. I like pie.

I am hosting a Thanksgiving dinner party where this beast of a turkey bird will be served as the main attraction. But as we all know a great show is lacking when there isn't a delicious finale at the end of it.

By finale I mean dessert. The most important meal of all.

My first and only previous experience of pumpkin pie was when my Auntie Rachel made it one year (for Christmas I think). I loved it. It was great. Mum however wasn't so much a fan. She got a bit weirded out by a vegetable (slash actually a fruit) and sugar combination thrown into a sweet pie. To me that sounds excellent. Unfortunately I do not own a decent pie dish. There is only a quiche dish here. Great sadness I know. Then I thought, hey! what's better than a pie? Lots of mini pies! Everything is better in miniature. Like mini bagels. They are amazing.

(I'll tell you how to make the pecan ones tomorrow :))

I found a recipe to sort of follow in my Hummingbird Cookbook (of course). I was feeling lazy as I had a whole tonne of other things I needed to do so I bought some pre rolled sweet crust pastry. Sure it isn't as good as homemade but it sure is easier.

The recipe calls for 424g of tinned pumpkin puree. Last time I checked they don't sell that here. I googled the best way to make my own. The Pioneer Woman helped me out with this one. I baked around 700g of fresh pumpkin and it yielded me bang on 425g. Phew!

Because I was using mini muffin trays to cook these, the pie cases only held half a tablespoon of filling in each one. I only had enough pastry to make 30ish of these (I needed to save the other half of the pastry for my mini pecan pies later) and so I was left with quite a bit of left over filling. That is ok though, i'll just buy some more pastry and make some more later.

Mini Pumpkin Pies
makes 50-60
adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

4 sheets, pre rolled sweet short crust pastry
425g pumpkin puree (see here for instructions)
235ml evaporated milk
220g castor sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon flour
baking spray

mini muffin trays
a tart tamper
a 5cm circle shape you can use as a pastry cutter

Mix together the pumpkin, spices, evaporated milk, sugar, egg and flour with a wooden spoon until a smooth mixture is formed.

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees on bake. Generously spray the mini muffin trays with baking spray.

Lightly flour your bench a place on it a defrosted sheet of sweet, short crust pastry.

Using the 5cm circle, cut out circles from the pastry. Using the tart tamper (or your fingers if you don't mind them being all knobbly) press the pastry circle into the mini muffin hole. Make sure there aren't any holes in the base.

Once you have filled up the tray with the cases, spoon 1 1/2 teaspoons (or half a tablespoon) of the pumpkin filling mixture into each case.

Bake for 17 minutes or until the filling stops wobbling.

Leave to cool for a few minutes before twisting the mini pies in their trays to release them. Leave to cool on a clean tea towel or cake rack. Repeat until you have used up all your pastry and/or filling.

These are best eaten warm but are still delicious the next day. Once they are fully cooled, place them in an airtight container.