Note: This recipe is part of our Harry Potter-themed dessert menu.
In the U.S., pasties are worn by ladies with names like Dita Von Teese and Cinnamon, but in the U.K., the word has an entirely different meaning.
There, pasties are wholesome, filling hand pies, crimped half-circles of pastry filled with all manner of good things, like beef, potato, carrot, onion, cheese and turnips. As of this year, Cornish pasties are receiving Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, meaning they will be as safeguarded as Champagne or Parma ham.
So, don’t screw around with them. They will CUT you.
But Pumpkin Pasties? Those seem to be strictly a wizarding treat conjured up by J.K. Rowling for the “Harry Potter” series. Which means we TOTALLY had to make them.
Pasties tend to be savory, but since everything else on the Hogwart Express food trolley is sweet, it seems like pumpkin pasties would be sweet, too. Sweet like pumpkin pie filling baked in a cinnamon-sugar pastry.
Last fall, Cooking Light
Then, I followed a process similar to last summer’s Cherry Fried Pie-making extravaganza – rolling out my pie dough, cutting it into circles and folding about a tablespoon of pumpkin filling into each circle, making dozens of little crimped half-moons.
The pasties baked up golden-brown, but they still needed an extra something-something. Some flash. So I threw together some cinnamon-sugar and rolled the warm pasties in it before I set them on my wire racks to cool.
A tablespoon of pumpkin filling doesn’t seem like much when you’re adding it to each dough circle, but it fills these pasties with spicy, creamy pumpkin goodness. Combine that with the snap of the freshly-baked pie dough and the sweet shimmer of all that cinnamon-sugar glitter, and you have some pretty irresistible pumpkin pasties.
Well worth a wizard’s love.
Back off, Cornwall!
Pumpkin Pasties
Adapted from Libby’s® Famous Pumpkin Pie recipe
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 large eggs
- 1 can (15 ounces) Libby’s® 100% Pure Pumpkin
- 1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
- Pie dough, enough for two 9-inch crusts (refrigerated packaged dough or homemade)
- 1 egg, separated
- 1 tablespoon cream
- Optional: cinnamon-sugar mixture (1/2 cup sugar + 1 to 2 tablespoons cinnamon)
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a 1 1/2-quart casserole dish or pie plate with butter, and set aside.
- In a small bowl, mix the sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Set aside.
- Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Stir in the pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture.
- Gradually add the evaporated milk, and stir to combine.
- Transfer the pumpkin filling to your prepared dish, and bake for 15 minutes.
- Lower oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake for 30 minutes.
- Cool the pumpkin filling on a wire rack.
- Raise the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.
- When the filling is cool, lightly dust your counter or another flat surface with flour. Roll out each crust to about 1/16-inch-thick (a little thicker than a tortilla), and cut the dough into 4-inch circles. (You can reroll the trimmings to make additional circles, but only do it once, or they’ll be tough.)
- Put about 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of each dough circle.
- Working with one circle of dough at a time, brush some egg white on the edge of half of each circle to help seal them. Fold the circle in half, and crimp the edges with the tines of a fork. Place the pasty on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and repeat with the rest of the pasties.
- Cut three small slits at the top of each pasty, and lightly brush them with egg wash (made by combining the egg yolk and cream).
- Sprinkle the pasties with sugar. Bake them for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown.
- If desired, when the pasties come out of the oven, roll them in cinnamon and sugar before placing them on a wire rack to cool.
[ad name=”space”]
.