32 New Ways to Upgrade Your Plain Ol' Pumpkin Pie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you upgrade a store-bought pumpkin pie? ›

Caramel sauce is the instant upgrade that will make your pie feel truly indulgent. Whether you make your own or go for store-bought, heat the sauce and drizzle it warm over the pie just before serving. What makes this so special is the way the warmth of the sauce contrasts with the room-temperature or chilled pie.

They are the same product. Both canned pumpkin puree and pie filling are useful, shelf-stable ingredients that can help speed up your kitchen prep time. Just remember that puree is unsweetened, while pie filling contains sugar and spices. This will help you choose the right pumpkin product for your recipes.

The pie is generally flavored with pumpkin pie spice, a blend that includes cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves or allspice. The pie is usually prepared with canned pumpkin, but fresh-cooked pumpkin can be used.

Cornstarch Substitute for Fruit Pie Fillings

Just be sure to use 2 tablespoons flour or tapioca starch for every 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in the recipe.

A quick and simple way to give your canned cherry pie filling a homemade taste is to add more flavor. Use dried spices or flavor extracts to up the flavor without adding more sugar. Start with a teaspoon of vanilla or almond extract. From there, get creative with cinnamon, ginger, cloves or nutmeg.

Pumpkin pie mix can be used as a substitute for pure canned pumpkin in some recipes. However, since it is already sweetened and flavored, you'll need to make some adjustments. In most dessert recipes, leave out the pumpkin pie spice and cut down on the sugar since the pumpkin pie mix includes it.

Sugar Baby Pumpkin

Also known as Sugar Pie pumpkins, these thin-skinned squash are smaller (4-8 lbs.) and have a sweet, dense flesh with a fine-grained, smooth texture. The cooked flesh is a bit drier, which makes a great pie filling.

As the name suggests, sweetened condensed milk makes the pie sweeter and gives it a denser, creamier texture. Evaporated milk, on the other hand, yields a lighter, airier result. Evaporated milk isn't sweetened either, which is why you can't simply swap one thickener for the other.

Pies with too much evaporated milk formed blisters on top.

Though the interior of the filling had a great, creamy texture. The flavor was ever-so-slightly muted and had a hint of milkiness to it.

Why does my pumpkin pie taste bland? ›

Pumpkin Pie Problem 1: No Pumpkin Taste

Look for pumpkins labeled "sugar pumpkin" or "baking pumpkin." The pumpkins typically used for jack-o'-lanterns are stringy, watery, and bland. If you can't find straight-up pumpkin, kabocha squash or even butternut squash can make a good substitute.

Very often flour or cornstarch is used, but in certain instances tapioca, arrowroot and potato starch can also help achieve the desired consistency. Find out which thickener won't break down, preventing your pie from becoming a watery mess in Food Network Kitchens Pie Thickener 101 post.

Why Didn't My Pumpkin Pie Set? You're ready to serve your homemade pumpkin pie, but when you try to cut it, it's too runny to get any clean slices. Why this happens: The pie was underbaked, or the oven temperature wasn't high enough. Taking the pie out of the oven prematurely is a very easy mistake to make.

Signs a Pumpkin Pie Is Overbaked

To avoid overbaking, check your pie at least five minutes before the end of the suggested baking time. You can always bake it for longer, but you can't unbake it. Also, watch out for overbrowning the crust.

Make Costco's Pumpkin Pie Even Better

Since you're not doing any baking, why not upgrade this store-bought pie a bit with cinnamon whipped cream? This does a few things: makes the pie look and feel fancier and more homemade, adds a bit of rich creaminess without adding sweetness, and ups the spice factor a bit.

Cook it on the stove

It involves nothing more than cooking canned pumpkin on the stove for a few minutes. This trick works because adding heat to the purée releases the natural pumpkin flavor, elevating it from barely there to wow.