Pumpkin Cream Pie Recipe on Food52 (2024)

I am a good cook and home baker, so I am totally puzzled by what went wrong here. The crust has way too much salt. The pastry cream came together, but needs a bit more sugar, in my opinion. The whipped cream was also under-sweet. Separately, everyone was doing the correct texture thing and then BOOM, disaster. I don't know if it was the chemical combination, but after hours chilling, and perfect texture as separate entities, the pie was soup. It made a mess, and the under sweet filling with the salty crust ... I cried a little, actually. I would suggest experimenting with the recipe and not relying on it to work and taste good as written.

Serious bakers weigh ingredients. It's precise. It's easy and a lot less messy. Plus leaves less room for error. Please start listing ingredients in grams.

I was originally planning not to make the crust even before I read the comments about it not working out to save time so I bought the graham cracker crust. The pumpkin base turned out good (I followed other peoples comments to use half the corn starch, twice the pumpkin spice, and to let it sit for a minute to bubble and let the before adding the vanilla and butter so that it sets. The sour-whipped cream did nit work out well for me.. I was using lactose free sour cream and heavy cream so that may be why it never formed "soft peaks" so I ended up buying some extra creamy cool whip and used the rest of my sour cream on a 1:3 ratio and it worked out perfect. Have not actually tried the pie yet (it is on its fist hour of chilling now) but the components were good tasting and the right texture/thickness separately. I am super excited to try!

This is a delicious pie and a nice change from classic pumpkin pie. It’s DIVINE in flavor and texture. Two years ago I test baked this and my favorite classic pumpkin pie recipe at Halloween. I never risk new recipes on Thanksgiving. And this was so good it nearly unseated the classic one entirely! We shall see - at thanksgiving I make lattice crust apple pie and a pecan pie - so having a cream pie is a nice balance.

Someone at food 52 needs to seriously remove this recipe once and for all! I made this failed recipe over three years ago. I’m amazed every time I get an alert with a comment about how much of a failure this pie was for other people. So many other great recipes on food 52 that are yummy and successful… No need for this one. Please remove!!!

Made this pie early this week closely following the recipe. The filling thickened but would not set enough for slicing. I expected it to be a flop, to be served (if at all) in a bowl with a spoon. I attributed the failure to set to having used homemade puree thinking it was too wet despite having drained in a sieve. As a last resort, I put the pie in the freezer removing it about twenty minutes before serving. As a frozen pie it was delicious and a big hit. I would make it again AS A FROZEN PIE1

Irene November 30, 2022

When I start to think I'm a decent cook, Thanksgiving rolls around, and then the elusive pumpkin pie brings me back to Earth. There's the hideous crack, the overly browned spots, the crust shrinkage, etc...and every year I learn something that I might tweak the following year or just use a different recipe entirely. I don't know, maybe pumpkin just doesn't like to play with me. I think what most folks are hoping for on Thanksgiving, a holiday where hosting is stressful enough, is a fool-proof recipe allowing the freedom to be able to follow it to the T (nod to the goddess that is Samin Nosrat)--not accounting for the adjustments based on personal preference e.g., less sugar, more salt, +/- spice--without catastrophic effects. What I think is the most offensive part of *this* recipe as-is is the ungodly amount of cornstarch. When I think of pastry cream, I think Tartine's lovely, oozy banana cream pie. If a pie is going to be like jello, then why call it pumpkin cream? It should just be filed under another pumpkin pie or more aptly, pumpkin jello pie. LOL. I tried this recipe again with some of @Sweet__Kate's recommendations and even less cornstarch (35 g to be exact). It's great, but it's not THIS recipe as originally written. Isn't that why the internet must have 10,000 roasted cauliflower recipes and still counting? Now who can offer tips with the crust? My hunch is the recipe calls for too much butter. I embrace the pecans and additional spices, but this crust won't stay in place to save my life, even with a tamper. It literally becomes hot lava, running down the sides and pools at the bottom of the pan. 9" pancake, anyone? I'll be enjoying my pumpkin jello "in a bowl" with broken graham cracker pecan cookies sprinkled on top. A new way to enjoy pumpkin, so there's that!

I followed this recipe to a T. Emma definitely held back on how to successfully make this pie. The sour cream in the whip cream just turned it to liquid. And forget about the pumpkin filling. It never set so basically ended up with literal pudding pie. Never breaking pumpkin pie tradition again. Thanks Em. No Thanksgiving dessert this year.

Man people are real mad about this! I made this yesterday (albeit with the corn starch lessened to 3tbs) with my kids (8 and 6) and it was a SMASH HIT! And when I say most of our measurements were approximate, I mean at least a few spoonfuls got splattered out of every mixture, and it still turned out great! Thank you so much!!!

How sad to see that this mess of a recipe is still on the food52 site. Do us all a favor, accept that it was NEVER properly tested and remove it!!!! Happy thanksgiving everyone and thank goodness there are 100’s of other sites for thanksgiving recipes!

Irene November 23, 2022

I wish I read the reviews before I attempted to make it and turned out a shiny, unappetizing looking pumpkin jello. Cornstarch needs to be added by weight, not volume...The range of cornstarch that one could add, even if the author had mentioned sifted or packed or something more in the appropriate range, would still be highly variable. Use WEIGHT for baking. But yes, this recipe is a no-go!

This is an incredibly irresponsible recipe post. The author made so many mistakes and for those people wanting to make a lovely dessert? It's mostly an epic fail. It's tasteless, too much cornstarch, the topping is not flavorful, adding WATER to the pie crust if needed? Not mentioning the fact that the butter needs to be melted for the pie crust portion. Do NOT freeze the crust. Here's my suggestions. Find another recipe. This one is incredibly flawed and let me direct this to those that tried to make this mess for Thanksgiving? My apologies from my kitchen to yours!

I made this pie yesterday and I think it’s wonderful! I made one mistake but I think it actually worked in my favor: I used a whole 15 oz can of pumpkin purée instead of 3/4 cup for the pumpkin cream. Careless mistake but it made the cream perfectly pumpkin-y and I think it actually helped it set better. It’s still soft and light, but incorporates a bit more of that autumnal flavor that makes pumpkin so beloved. Thanks so much for the yummo recipe :) When I make it again I might amp up the spices a bit, but overall I think it’s a smash!

This recipe could be 5 stars, AND it is still worth making. After reading the reviews and suggestions AND after reading Serious Eats' "How to Make Pastry Creme" - I was able to confidently modify the pumpkin creme pat to a better flavor and texture. Here are all of my modifications: I added 1/2 C. pecans and 1 tsp. of cinnamon into the food processor with the graham crackers for the crust. I used 1 C. pumpkin puree (twice baked squash puree), I used 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (1/2 tsp. is WAY too little), I added 1/4 tsp. cardamon for a little chai spice flavor, and I used 5 Tbs. corn starch (I can't believe the recipe author stands by her 1/2 C. - unnecessarily excessive) - the extra pumpkin and spice bring it to Thanksgiving-Dessert-Level. I had to trouble-shoot my creme pat twice and it still turned out - use Google if it isn't right. I added 1 tsp. vanilla to the whipped cream, and I wished I had added another Tbs. of brown sugar - it needed to be just a touch sweeter IMO. I practiced this in advance to see if it was worth bringing to Thanksgiving, and it definitely is.

I would not recommend this one. It took forever with so many steps and a lot of waiting. There was also a step about straining the filling through a sieve that was frustrating and in the end, not a single clump was left behind so it was just an exercise in time waste. The pie tasted good but the whipped cream was bland and tasteless. If you make this, make sure you have a lot of time to do it + don't do the sieve step + make your whipped cream from another recipe that includes powdered sugar so it will at least have taste. I won't be making this one again.

Amazing! It came out perfectly and is now one of my favorite pies ever. Love the sour cream whipped cream. I halved the corn starch and let the mixture bubble for a minute - this deactivates the amylase enzyme in the egg. If it doesn't get hot enough the amylase will dissolve the starch and make the filling runny.

1/2 cup of cornstarch. Yikes!!! Way way way too gummy and tastes like corn starch. Ugh. And this is an all time food52 fave!!! Seriously? Oh well you can’t win em all. Definitely NOT A WINNER.....

Move over regular pumpkin pie, there’s a new Thanksgiving dessert traditionBased on other reviews, I made the following modifications and the pie turned out perfectly. 3 tablespoon of cornstarch made a creamy filling. I cooked on medium low heat for 12 minutes while constantly stirring. It slowly bubbled if I stopped stirring to give you an idea of heat needed to activate the cornstarch. I also doubled the pumpkin the pumpkin pie spice to kick up the flavor. Thanks for such a great recipe!

Sounded sooo good...but was so disappointed 😞...made exactly as directed yet found the custard never set up even after a full 24 hours chilling and was messy as well as not pumpkiny at all! The only thing tasty about this recipe was the crust

Question: typically, a pastry cream calls fir the custard to boil or simmer. This does not. Do we want it to reach simmer stage?