Carrot (pumpkin) Pie

This morning when I opened my blogger dashboard I was greeted by a delicious looking post by Sara from My Merry Messy Life on an easy pumpkin pie recipe.

Here in South Africa when someone says pie, this is what comes to mind:

 Basically a pastry pocket with a meaty or other savory filling.

I have never made or even tasted a pumpkin pie before, I have never actually made any pie but Sara’s pie looked so good I just had to give it a try.
Only problem is I didn’t have any pumpkin in the house.

After following a link to Pick Your Own they mentioned that a good alternative to pumpkin in this pie is carrots. Well I have tons of those in the garden and decided to give it a try. I have been looking for new ways to use my carrots as the family are not too fond of them as a veg on their own.
So out I went to pick some carrots.

Washed and trimmed, here are the purple and orange carrots from the garden

I just love how when you peel these purple dragons, the orange under the skin is so bright.

Anyway back to the pie…
I didn’t take any picture during the process of making the pie, but here is the end result:

It was sooooo good! I think I am hooked, lots more carrot pie coming to this household. I will also have to try pumpkin and butternut one day
I must say, hubby was very skeptical about this “carrot pie”, but he really enjoyed it and the boys thought it was amazing. Who would have guessed carrots could taste this good.

So here is the recipe if you would like to give it a try, you can also use the recipe from Pick Your Own as they have tons of pictures to follow

Crust:
210 grams of flour
100 grams of cold butter
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
cold water to bind

Mix the flour, sugar, salt and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Slowly add water while the food processor is running until the dough comes together. It only takes a few tablespoons. Wrap the dough in some cling film and place in the fridge.

Filling:
2 cups of carrot puree (i used about a kilo of carrots to get this, which I steamed and pureed in the food processor)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
350ml of evaporated milk (I used regular milk and mixed in 2 tablespoons of milk powder to make it richer)
*update* I made this pie again and while following the recipe above I realised that I forgot to put sugar on the list.
1 cup of sugar

Simple mix all the ingredients together with an electric mixer until smooth

After about half an hour remove the dough from the fridge and roll out, then place in a pie dish. Pour the filling into the crust and bake.
Bake at 210 C (425 F) for the first 15 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 175 C (350 F) and bake for another 45 to 60 minutes, until a clean knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
Leave to cool for about 15 minutes (this is the hard part), slice and enjoy.

Apparently its good with whipped cream or ice cream, but we didn’t get a chance to try that.