Christmas: Almond-Amaretto Pumpkin Chiffon

I cannot really say what my pie baking inspiration was this week. But, I was inspired. And, while there were some bumps in the road, the final product was, for me at least, worth it. I made two pies for our family's Christmas meal. Egg Nog, due to its popularity a couple of Christmas's ago, and a pumpkin variation, based on a couple of recipes that I found particularly inviting. There were some tense moments (one might assume that I would know what I am doing by now, but no... apparently not), and the pumpkin turned out somewhat less than perfect, but despite the difficulties and minor snafus, I really liked both constructing and eating the pie.

I don't remember making many pies where the solidifying agent was gelatin. There must have been at least one because otherwise I do not know why we would have plain gelatin packets around -- and we do.

You may already be able to tell where this is going.

There are steps in the recipe(s) -- and therefore in my bastardization of those recipes as well -- where you have to heat and stir (heat and stir!) until slightly thickened. What does slightly thickened mean? A little bit thicker than I went with is my new and improved answer.

There I was on Christmas, slightly thickening, cooling, adding other ingredients, allowing to set up... and it just did not appear to be happening. Perhaps the fact that several hours of set up time were in a styrofoam cooler in the back of an SUV did not help matters?

Once the pie was mercifully allowed to rest in an honest-to-goodness refrigerator things improved, but were still a bit on the shaky side (both figuratively and literally in this case). Nearly 24 hours later, it at least resembled an edible dish, and actually looked kind of nice. Topped with some toasted almonds and amaretto whipped cream it was not too bad.

If I had to do it all over again (I believe we have firmly established that I do not), I would make a couple of adjustments.

1. Slightly more thickened
2. Reduce the sugar in the pie (the Amaretto is soooo sweet, with the sugar it is a bit much)
3. I would not sweeten the whipped cream at all, but would just infuse it with a little Amaretto (same reason)

Even with some adjustments to be made, I still liked it a lot, particularly the toasted almonds as a nice texture change.

I am not making a pie this week due to the holidays and corresponding lack of people around to eat whatever I concoct. I expect that I will compile something over the weekend for the work crowd next week.