Pumpkin Pie with Carmelized Almonds and Nutmeg Fruits

Staple of American cuisine which is not that popular in Europe. My craze about incorporating vegetables to baking goods started last year when I fell in love with an amazing carrot cake (Canadian thing ;) that I was indulging myself with at my university caffeteria - incredibly fluffy with perfect icing (while my carrot cakes are usually quite heavy, no matter how many egg whites I whip into the batter plus my icing is more 'cheesy' or vanilla custard-like as I cannot balance the taste properly...). Then there were carrot muffins with peach icing, chocolate cake with beetroots... :) Interesting thing is that people came up with all these recipes during wartimes when they had to face severe sugar shortages. Still, nobody felt like giving up the practise of sweetening the turmoil with baked goods so some desperate foodies started to replace a part of sugar with widely available vegetables containing lots of fructose, e.g. carrot, beets, pumpkin. Quite a milestone in the history of Foodism, isn't it? :)

It was the second time I baked the pie so I decided to add some more stuff to make it even more interesting. A layer of carmelized almonds found its place between the crust and pumpkin cream, while anis seeds and cloves lost themselves on the bottom of my mortar. Then revived with Mr.Ginger ended up in a dollop of condensed milk and pumpkin puree. Speaking on the pumpking puree, I made few jars of it last year and I have to brag that it was the first thing I pasteurized in my life - "professionally" in my little oven ;) 

However the most unique ingredient is definitely the preserved fruit of numeg I brought from Malaysia. Up to the mid-19th century Bandas Islands (Indonesia) were the world's only source of nutmeg which was traded exclusively by Arabs. In the 16th century, when the hub of Asian trade, Malacca, was conquered by the Portuguese the first Europeans reached the "spice islands". As the British weren't able to fully control the Bandas they desperately transplanted nutmeg trees to their other colonial holdings, including caribbean Grenada (its contemporary national flag even portrays a split-open nutmeg fruit ;) Nowadays nutmeg trees are also common in Penang Island in Malaysia which makes it one of the biggest nutmeg exporters. Moreover nutmeg is also an important ingredient of uniquely Penang ais kacang, which is quite interesting as traveling around Asia and trying some of ais kacang-like desserts (based on shaved ice) I didn't come aross anything flavoured with spices. And what does the fruit itself taste like? Like nutmeg :) But the flavour is more subtle. 

INGREDIENTS   &   METHOD

Crust

• 150 g (1 cup) flour
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar
• 70g butter
• pinch of salt
• 3 tbsp ice-cold water

It's a typical sweet shortcrust so there are 2 basic rules: "2 parts of flour-1 part of fat ratio" and "the colder, the better". I do recommend keeping everything in a fridge before you start working with it (including the bowl and, in my case, fork). 

1. Mix the flour and sugar. Make sure to use powdered sugar to distribute it evenly in the flour.
2. Rub the butter into the sweetened flour with a chilled fork. Work on it until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 
3. Add the ice-cold water (spoon after spoon to control the consistency...) and stir the mixture with the cold fork until the dough binds together. If it's too sticky, dust it with a bit of flour but please, do not overwork it (...gluten strands ;)
4. Wrap the ball of dough in clingfilm and chill for about 30 minutes.
5. Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface and tranfer it to a 23-cm pie plate.
6. Refridgerate the dough-lined pie plate once again.
7. Pre-baking: Poke some holes in the crust with a fork and put the pie bottom to an oven (180 degrees Celsius). Pre-bake until it's pale golden (let's say 75% baked ;)
8. Meanwhile prepare the almond crumble...

Work on the dough as fast as possible - it can't get warm! If the butter melts = become liquid, the gluten strands become longer = tough crust. That's why you have to make sure to coat the flour granules with fat evenly so they are not likely to develop a lot of gluten which makes the final product  t.o.u.g.h. There are 3 gluten-friendly factors aka. hazards to our shortcrust: 1. liquid, 2. kneading, 3. temperature. It also depends on the type of flour - bread flour develops more gluten than cake flour. There are 7 (!) types of wheat flour available on Polish market so you can easily match the right type of flour to the final product you want to obtain.

Almond crumble (you can skip it but it gives the pie another nice mouth-feel)

• 70g almonds
• 4 tbsp brown cane sugar

1. Roast the chopped almonds on a pan (medium heat, no fat).
2. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the roasted almonds and keep stirring for a minute or so until it resembles fine crumbs. Do not burn it! Sugar cannot get fully carmelized!

Filling

• 400 ml pumpkin puree
• 400 ml sweetened condenced milk
• 100g brown cane sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamon
• 1 clove
• 1 tsp anis seeds
• 15g fresh ginger (about 1,5 cm)
• 1/2 nutmeg fruit
• orange zest (peeled from a single orange)
• pinch of salt

1. Beat the eggs with sugar until it blends nicely.
2. Add the condenced milk and pumpkin puree.
3. Add all the powdered spices, grate the fresh ginger (zest peeler is perfect for me - all the stringy parts separate nicely on one side of the peeler), chop the nutmeg fruit, grind the clove and anis seeds in a mortar - stir everything with the pumpkin mixture.
4. Cover the pre-baked crust with the almond crumble and carefully pour the filling on the top and voila!
5. Bake for about 45 minutes untill the pumpkin filling sets (you can check it with a toothpick). If the top starts to burn slightly, cover it with a 
6. Let it cool down :)