Pumpkin Pie and Tuesday playgroup

My friend made an orange cake for our regular Tuesday afternoon kids and parents playgroup.  She was unhappy with the recipe for a few reasons, but the colour of it was exactly the shade that I imagined pumpkin pie to be.  I've only had pumpkin pie once; years ago my mother made it as kind of an in joke, as only herself and I liked pumpkin.  The dessert was very popular, a little less so once the key ingredient was revealed!!

I used a recipe from here:  Pumpkin Pie

It was quite difficult to find a recipe that used actual pumpkin.  The majority use canned (tinned) pumpkin.  Clearly it is an available ingredient in the USA - here the closest thing might be tinned baby food.  There is also a particular variety of pumpkin grown for pie-making purposes; I've not seen it here.  The recipe suggests using buttercup pumpkin as an alternative.  I decided to use bog standard pumpkin as I really wanted an autumn-coloured pie!

Because the inspiration for the pie came from my playgroup it seemed best to try it out on them!  We regularly meet with a group of friends each Tuesday.  Sometimes it is at an indoor playground, other times we swap around houses.  Everyone descends, chaos reigns.  The children play with only a minor need for parental intervention and the parents catch up with each other.  We are already on to the second generation of the playgroup with a bunch of one year olds (the Poppet's friends) and the third generation is in production!

The pie was popular.  It is a bit of a treat for playgroup.  Everyone brings something if they can, but if you are having a bad/busy day then no one particularly minds if you come with something.  People were curious and the adults mostly all had a taste;  the children mostly declined!  Afterwards when I was stacking the dishwasher I had to smile:  the top of the dishwasher was full of coffee cups and brightly coloured children's cups.  The cutlery holder was full of cake forks and about half of the bottom layer was small serving plates.  It was a fun afternoon and left me feeling both restored and shattered!

Comments on the recipe:

• I used sweet shortcrust pastry instead of making my own.
• The recipe makes simply an enormous quantity.  I suggest halving it as I ended up with two pies.
• I was worried that it was over spiced.  My tasting buddies were mixed on the spice and I don't know if I would change the quantities next time. The first bite tastes full of spice - more than you would expect.  After that you know what is coming and it tastes as expected.