Baking the Books: Harry Potter Pumpkin Pasties!

 Welcome to Baking the Books, where I bake things inspired by my favorite novels! Since I do a lot of reading and a lot of baking, it was only a matter of time before the two things overlapped. It's just part of my evil plot to get books involved in every single aspect of my life.

Previous on Baking the Books: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz cupcakes

I've said possibly a hundred million times before on this blog, but I'm give a limb to go to Hogwarts, or at least to be invited to one of their banquets. Nobody can throw a party like Hogwarts can, and their Halloween banquet as always seemed, to me, like one of their best. I mean, you are literally dining with witches and wizards. Talk about thematic.




How much do I want to throw a Harry Potter party? So much.

Related: Butterbeer Cupcakes

One of the most delicious-sounding Harry Potter treats to me were always the pumpkin pasties, because pumpkins are the nectar of the gods and the symbol of fall and Halloween and perfection. So. PUMPKIN PASTIES, the yummy pumpkin treats Harry discovers for the first time aboard the Hogwarts express.

 

Ingredients:

Pie dough:

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 sticks of butter, cute into 1 inch squares and chilled
6 to 8 tablespoons ice water

OR: You can cheat with two sheets of pre-made pie dough. Saves quite a lot of time and effort.

Pumpkin pie filling:

3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 heavy whipping cream
2 cups pumpkin puree (1 16 oz. can)


NOTE: This recipe produced far too much. I recommend halving it, but I didn't here because writing "1/2 egg yolk" would have felt silly.

OR: You can use whichever pumpkin pie recipe you like.
OR: You can cheat by buying and pre-made, already cooked pumpkin pie. Yay for shortcuts!

Assemblage:

You should do this and/or the pumpkin filling a day ahead if you're doing them both from scratch.

Pie dough! Mix the 2 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt,  and 1 tablespoon sugar. I like to mix my pie dough in a food processor, as its by far the easiest way, but you can also use an electric mixer with the paddle attachment or a hand-held pastry blender. Add the 1 1/2 sticks of butter (in cubes, remember?), and then mix (pulse with your food processor) until the butter is incorporated into the flour and broken up into pea-sized pieces. Add six tablespoons ice water and continue mixing until the dough starts to hold together. If necessary, add the two remaining  tablespoons.

 

Form the dough into two balls. Wrap in plastic and flatten them into 1 inch-thick discs. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

 

Pumpkin filling! Don't forget, you should probably halve the recipe, even though I didn't. In a large bowl, combine 3 eggs, 1 egg yolk, 1/2 cup white sugar, and 1/2 cup packed brown sugar. Add 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon cloves. Gradually stir in 1 1/2 cups milk and 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream. Stir in 2 cups pumpkin.




Pour into a large baking pan, the larger and shallower, the better. Bake filling at 350 degrees until set. My filling took forever to bake, and at the end I cranked up the temp to 375 to finish it off. All ovens are different, though, so let's say ballpark 30 minutes, but keep an eye on it.

Once the filling is baked, take it out and let it cool.

 

 Fun with cookie cutters! Roll out half your dough on a floured surface. Using a pumpkin shaped cookie-cutter (or any shape you want, really, but pumpkin is best for hopefully obvious reasons), cut as many pumpkin shapes as you can into the dough. Set these on a prepared baking sheet. Brush the edges with egg was (one egg, beaten). Spoon about two to three tablespoons of pumpkin filling on top.

 


Roll out the second half of your dough. Cut as many pumpkin shapes as you can. But you get to have fun with these! Cut out faces, slices, your initials, whatever you want, using a knife or, to make life simpler, the Zoku Quick Pop Character Tool Kit or some equivalent. You can get as fancy as you want to.



Press the cut out pumpkin shapes onto top of the egg-washed and pumpkin-laden bottom pieces. Make sure the edges line up, and that there's egg wash between them, as this will hold the two pie pieces together. Press the edges down, and repeat with the other. Brush the tops with egg wash.



Bake for twenty to thirty minutes, or until golden brown. Voila! You have pumpkin pasties!

And it's happy to see you!

Have a happy October!