Cup Pies! Pumpkin Ones!

I made cup pies! Pumpkin cup pies!

Look at my pumpkin cup pie!

Fans of Pushing Daisies will of course know that a cup pie is a single-serve pie with honey baked into the crust.

Chuck promotes cup pies to Ned in Pushing Daisies (Image source)

I've not baked in I can't remember how long... But this occasion all started with my plan to make pumpkin pie to take in as a Halloween treat for my workmates. I love pumpkin, seriously, love pumpkin. I think that it is intentionally designed to be hard to cut up because otherwise humans would simply overdose on it because it is so good. It's the only vegetable for which I am willing to make all that effort. 

However, I've only had pumpkin pie once or twice in my life, when I have been fed it by an American friend. I decided that it had been too long since I'd indulged in this wonderful treat and that I would break my baking drought with pumpkin pie. As I was going to take it into work, I thought it would make more sense to make small ones that I could distribute easily.

But it was when I found myself short of sugar for the pastry and The Cat suggested I make up the difference with honey that I realised I was actually making cup pies, with honey as the vital ingredient!

Honey - the secret cup pie ingredient.
That's Philip up on the cupboard - he watches over the Cat and I, cheering us up when we're down or stressed.

I used a recipe for sweet shortcrust pastry I got off the BBC website, using about 50g of sugar and a few healthy scoops of honey. You can definitely taste the hint of honey. Unfortunately the pastry stayed quite soft even after a proper, long baking, which isn't so good for individual pies that you want to be able to pick up in your hand. I'm not sure if the result was due to the honey or it's just the usual result of the runny pumpkin filling - perhaps pumpkin pie crusts are always a bit soggy and that doesn't matter when you have a slice on a plate? In any case, I'd experiment with different quantities of honey in the pastry if I tried it again, and I'm not sure if it would be worth trying a slightly different approach such as blind baking first...

Chopping the pumpkin, keeping the seeds aside in case I decide to roast them later.
And I know, no chopping board - bad form.

For the filling, I just pressed on as instructed in the BBC's pumpkin pie recipe, without messing about.

Only for you, oh marvellous pumpkin, would I do all this chopping.
(Note: the wine was an aid, not an ingredient)

The next adjustment came with the baking time. As I was doing lots of small pies, they required less baking time than one big one, but it was still a good 25 minutes.

So much excitement! They actually worked!

Smells so good... (And yes, my lipstick has worn off a little due to sampling the pastry and filling as I cooked...)

Plate of cup pies - although slightly incorrect in Pushing Daisies terms as I used a mince pie tray rather than a muffin one, so they should technically be deeper... but I'm not really complaining.

I found the result really very sweet - maybe I got my measurements slightly wrong, used the wrong kind of pumpkin, or should have made adjustments to the sweet ingredients due to the honey in the crust... Or maybe I'm just not used to treats this sugary. But adding a dollop of cream took the edge off the sweetness, making it almost perfect.

Cup pie?