Honey Pumpkin Pie ♥

My long-time homemade pumpkin pie, sweetened with honey instead of processed sugar, rich with autumn spices. The filling is soft and smooth and dreamy good. Make it with either canned pumpkin or roasted fresh pumpkin.

Real Food, Fresh & Seasonal. Perfect for Thanksgiving, Other Fall Occasions & Grandsons Passionate for Pumpkin Pie. No Mixer Required. Budget Friendly.

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"If I were a guy, I'd only eat pie. Oh my, oh sigh, please feed me pie."

Okay, so it's awful poetry. But the pie? It's completely dreamy. The honey is wonderful as the sweetener, adding an edgy complexity to the pumpkin custard. Truth be told, Honey Pumpkin Pie has been my one-and-only pumpkin pie recipe since 2007. It's so simple, so nuanced, so perfect, there's just no need to try another.

Your Choice: Fresh Pumpkin or Canned Pumpkin

A handful of times, I've made this pie with fresh pumpkin. Dozens of times, I've made it with canned pumpkin. Which is better? Well, you'll have to decide what's right for you because it depends.

FRESH PUMPKIN A homemade pumpkin purée makes a pie that's sweetly pale in color and subtly delicate in flavor. It's the "foodie" choice for people who are curious about food and welcome adaptation – and it's my personal pick, forever and ever. Plus, I keep getting requests from the taste tasters, "So when are you going to make another one of your pumpkin pies?"

CANNED PUMPKIN But pumpkin pie made with canned pumpkin looks and tastes exactly like we've been trained to recognize as pumpkin pie. It's the "safe" and decidedly delicious choice for people who are saddled with tradition and only eat what they know.

A Long-Standing Recipe Tested by Time & Many Pumpkin Pie Lovers

I just love it when recipes stand up to the test of time! This is such a lovely pumpkin pie, sweetened so gently with honey. Every year, I make one or two or a dozen. Some times I reach for a can of pumpkin, gosh it's convenient. Other times I roast a pie pumpkin or kabocha squash, this pie deserves another life with roasted pumpkin! Also, thanks to a reader for suggesting bumping up the spices, that's how I make it now and what's suggested in the updated recipe below.

COMPLIMENTS!
"Good pie! ... Excited to find a recipe that doesn't use refined sugar." ~ Rebekah

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HONEY PUMPKIN PIE

Hands-on time: 20 minutes (not including pastry)
Time to table: 4 hours
Makes 1 deep-dish pie to serve 8

CRUST
1 unbaked deep-dish pie shell, especially my Flaky Tender Pie Crust

FILLING
2 cups fresh roasted (or otherwise cooked) pumpkin, puréed until very smooth in a food processor
~ or ~
1 15-ounce (2 cups/425g) can 100% pumpkin purée

4 large eggs
1/2 cup (152g) honey
1/2 cup (115g) whole milk
1/2 cup (119g) heavy cream
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
1 teaspoon table salt

CRUST Place a baking sheet upside down on the oven's bottom rack and heat the oven to 375F/190C. Browning a pie's bottom crust is always a trick. I have learned, especially with Honey Pumpkin Pie's almost-liquid filling, to parbake the crust for a long while. First, line the chilled crust (including the edges) with foil, then add enough sugar to hold up the sides in the heat of the oven. Parbake the foil-lined crust for 30 minutes on the second rack from the bottom. The crust may still look pale and undone but the headstart really helps. This technique works perfectly for my favorite crust, Flaky Tender Pie Crust; other crusts may respond differently.

FILLING If you've puréed the roasted pumpkin in the food processor, you can continue to use the food processor for mixing the filling. Just throw all the remaining ingredients in and whizz a few times. Otherwise – in a large bowl, beat the eggs until well-mixed with an electric mixer. An energetic whisk works just fine, too, just be sure to make sure that no streaks of egg white or egg yolk remain. Add the pumpkin and all the remaining ingredients and mix until very well combined and smooth.

BAKE Carefully pour the mixture into the still-hot par-baked pie shell, then carefully put the pie into the hot oven on the second rack from the bottom; the filling is sloshy so can run up the sides which doesn't hurt anything but doesn't look as pretty after baking. Bake for 45 minutes or until the center is just set. The pie will firm up while cooling.

TO PREP AHEAD
SEVERAL DAYS AHEAD Roast the pumpkin (here's how to roast a whole pumpkin) if you choose fresh pumpkin.
DAY BEFORE or MORNING OF SERVING Mix the pastry and refrigerate the pie crust dough.
MORNING OF SERVING Mix the filling, roll the pastry and bake the pie. I especially like the custard chilled so once the pie has cooled, refrigerate it if you can. I know people make their pies the day before but I think the pastry suffers and if it's good pastry, you don't want to mar it.

LEFTOVER REPORT The custard is dreamy, even a few days later.

ALANNA's TIPS & KITCHEN NOTES
GOOD CRUST For the crust, use your favorite crust recipe or try mine, which gets rave reviews from both new pastry makers and experience pie bakers, see all the tips for how to make a Flaky Tender Pie Crust. I also have great luck with a few improvements to store-bought crusts, see refrigerated pie crusts.
HOMEMADE PUMPKIN PURÉE Be sure to buy a pie pumpkin (good ones can be sugar pie pumpkins, kabocha, hubbards and one I keep hearing about but haven't found yet, a cheese pumpkin), not one for jack o'lanterns or decoration. UPDATE Now I only make pumpkin purée from a kabocha squash, here's why, Homemade Kabocha Squash "Pumpkin" Purée. You can also use a butternut squash, see If you can't find a pie pumpkin, use a butternut squash, see How to Roast a Whole Butternut Squash.
DRAIN WATERY PUMPKIN PURÉE After roasting the pumpkin, drain the roasted flesh in a strainer. If it's full of water that drains out, taste it. Is it any good? If it's bland and watery, I'd use canned pumpkin instead.
CANNED PUMPKIN If you go for the canned version, be sure to buy pure pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie filling which has already been spiced and etc. Do be careful with some brands of canned pumpkin: Trader Joe's and the 365-brand can be watery and should be strained before mixing the filling.
WEIGH THE INGREDIENTS I've given the weights for all the ingredients, even the liquid ones. This is because it's so easy to mix up the filling mixture using a kitchen scale (affiliate link) without measuring cups. Just put the mixing bowl on the scale, hit the tare button to revert to zero, add the first ingredient, hit the tare button to revert to zero, and so on. Easy!
LEFTOVER FILLING? This recipe is for a deep-dish pie pan, one that holds a full six cups of filling. If yours is shallower, adjust accordingly – or better yet, put extra custard into custard cups and put into a hot water bath in the oven while the pie bakes. (My recipe for pumpkin pudding shows how to cook with a hot water bath.)
HAVE PIE, WILL CARRY This is a great pie to carry elsewhere, to give away. One year I delivered pies on Thanksgiving and used disposable metal pans, the nine-inch ones you find in grocery stores. I made only 2/3 of the filling (including 3 eggs) and it worked perfectly. I blind baked the crust for 10 minutes before adding the filling and gave the bottom crust a little boost by baking the pie atop a hot baking sheet. It baked in less time, about 35 minutes.
SHORT ON EGGS? The first time I made this pie, I had only three eggs, that worked fine. The most recent time I made the pie, I had only two eggs and while it will do in a pinch, the custard was especially soft, more pudding-like than pie consistency. How I've been short on eggs – which never happens around here – twice for this one pie is a puzzle.
TIMING Watch the timing on this pie, you don't want to underbake it. Par-baking the crust for 30 minutes helps, so does putting the pie on the oven's bottom rack closer to the heat source – this puts relatively more heat on the bottom crust, leaves the top edge with relatively less.
KID FRIENDLY? At our house, even the kids love pumpkin pie, especially the older twin grandson! Make two!

RECIPE INSPIRATION The recipe comes from Farm Journal's Complete PIE cookbook: 700 Best Dessert and Main-Dish Pies in the Country (affiliate link) which was published in 1965 and is long out of print. Used copies are available and so popular that some editions are priced $40 - $60! This is the one cookbook I carry when I visit my dad and am expected – based on tradition to make a pie every day so he can invite friends for pie and coffee in the evening. More than one guest has been known to put in an "order" for a favorite pie months in advance. FUNNY STORY: Flipping through the pages, every once in awhile I'll find a note penciled in my dad's handwriting, "Make this." It makes me laugh, knowing he also flips through the pages, thinking, "Please feed me pie".

NUTRITION INFORMATION Per Slice (assumes filling + my Flaky, Tender Pie Crust): 344 Calories; 19g Tot Fat; 11g Sat Fat; 146mg Cholesterol; 652mg Sodium; 35g Carb; 2g Fiber; 20g Sugar; 6g Protein. WEIGHT WATCHERS Old Points 8 & PointsPlus 9 & SmartPoints 15 & Freestyle 11 & myWW green 14 & blue 11 & purple 11

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More Ideas for Thanksgiving Desserts

~ Sweet Potato-Chocolate Swirl Pie ~
~ No-Bake Pumpkin Cream Pie ~
~ Pumpkin Bars ~

~ My Favorite Pumpkin Recipes ~
~ more pumpkin recipes ~
from A Veggie Venture

~ Pumpkin Cheesecake ~
~ Pumpkin Pecan Pie ~
~ Apple-Butter Pumpkin Pie ~
~ Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars ~
~ more pumpkin recipes ~
~ more pie recipes ~
~ more Thanksgiving recipes ~
from Kitchen Parade, my food column

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