Paige on Exchange: Pumpkin Pie Part 1: Failure

On Wednesday, I invited Stephanie (the other exchange student in Valencia) to my house to make pumpkin pies for our host families. I loved the idea of sharing a truly American tradition with my host family, and promised them that I am a good cook. Maybe this jinxed it or something because things definitely did not go as planned.

When I went to buy the ingredients, I ran into several obstacles. Since they don’t have pies in Spain, I could not find a pie pan or pre-made piecrust. The first was solved easily because after digging around in the kitchen, I found a quiche dish that was perfect. The piecrust, however, was more challenging. I decided to be “creative” and make a graham cracker crust, since we only had a couple of hours and making piecrust takes awhile. However, there are no graham crackers in Spain either. I ended up buying some little cookies that looked like Teddy Grahams. Once they’re crushed up it won’t matter right? Then I went looking for canned pumpkin, which also is nonexistent in Spain. Luckily, I found real calabaza dulce (sweet pumpkin) in the vegetable section and bought two. Pumpkin pie from real pumpkins- how perfect, right? When I tried to find cream or half and half, though, there was no such thing, so I ended up just buying whole milk. A few minor substitutions won't matter....

When we went to make the pie, we discovered my host family does not own a blender, so making the pumpkin puree and crushing up the cookies was significantly more difficult. We put the cookies in a bag and gave it to my host sister to whack around the kitchen. But the darn cookies would not break!! Seriously, they were indestructible. It took almost 45 minutes to crush them. I could’ve just made a regular piecrust in that time. Next we had to microwave and boil the pumpkin to soften it, and then use some sort of hand-cranked metal device to make the pumpkin puree. The maid told us it’s used to make mashed potatoes, so I figured it would be fine. Then we realized there aren’t any English measuring cups, so I had to estimate all the measurement. I must have messed up the estimations because the filling turned out extremely watery. We tried adding flour to thicken it since there isn’t cornstarch but it didn’t really solve the problem. Can you see where this is headed?

I seriously can’t describe, though, how much fun we had making this pie. Stephanie and I were laughing to the point of tears at many points that night, and I am so glad we did it, even if the pie turned out a disaster. Let’s just say we spent over three hours trying to make a pumpkin pie that turned out with a crust burned to a blackened crisp, and a completely liquid filling with bits of flour floating up the top. Yummy.

Here are some pictures from the night. Stay tuned for Pumpkin Pie Part 2: Success!