Ultimate Pretty Good Pumpkin Pie

This Thanksgiving, I figured on cooking up something besides a turkey. We'll be going over to our in-laws, so they will be doing the heavy lifting. I figured a pie was in order. What is more classic than pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving?

So, to Google I went, and to www.foodnetwork.com I did end; settling on something labeled The Ultimate Pumpkin Pie with Crunchy Cranberry Topping. This recipe is attributed to Tyler Lawrence. I should note, I'm not a big Tyler Lawrence fan. No particular reason, he's just not in my list of Food Network folks I like viewing.

Thanksgiving is less than a week away, so tonight I bake a test pie. Now, here is the funny thing. I started reading the directions listed there on the website, and notice it says add the pumpkin filling into the shell, then, well, you read this snip...

...Pour the mixture into the pie shell, and place on the bottom rack of the oven. Brush the pastry with the beaten egg white...

Huh? If I fill the shell with filling, where does that egg white go? I decide to read the "Comments & Reviews", and I see I'm not alone in questioning the directions. Other folks are not as kind. Some say the recipe is too bland, others decided to tweak it to suit their tastes. The best comment I read was to watch the video. I did, and that was good advice indeed. I think maybe the person who typed up the recipe never actually talked to Tyler Florence or any of his people. Well, enough grousing.

The pie, I did crank it out, following the video more than the recipe. It's the first time I've made a pie where it wasn't "Dump something into the pre-made shell and cook it." The crust came out pretty well, I thought. The pie filling tastes great; my change to the printed instructions was to use 1/2 cup of heavy cream instead of 1 cup. Tyler said 1/2 cup in the video, so that's what I went with. Anybody commenting on time of cooking said the listed time was too short, so I go with an hour. When I pulled that pie out at the end of an hour, the outer crust was too dark. I know next time to shield the outer crust in foil. The pie looked good, so while it cooled down, it was time to prepare the topping.

Ah, the topping. Did I say I went to two different grocery stores looking for amaretto cookies? I did. Got skunked. I ended up buying some Lorna Doone shortbread cookies as a substitute. I could not find frozen cranberries. No doubt folks bought 'em all up. I got canned cranberry sauce, the kind with whole cranberries in them. I rinsed them in a colander to get the jelly off of them. We don't have a real food processor, ours is this add-on one that goes on a mixer body. It's small and a bit hokey. I didn't know how to work it properly, and should have pulsed the cookies, berries, and pecans. Instead, I let it go full bore and it was this sort of gummy stuff with large cookies parts. I found the "pulse" feature, and finally got it more consistent. It would have been better if I redid it, but ahh, whatever. I tell you what, regardless of what the texture should be, I think you would agree that the topping is not particularly attractive. It does taste good, in fact, the pie really does taste great. I think the idea of a crumbly topping on pumpkin pie is a good one, but I don't think cranberry is the right thing. Perhaps a more traditional crumble topping would be best. Maybe next time I'll try that, and if it's good, I'll call it "Better than Tyler Lawrence's Ultimate Pumpkin Pie Pie".