Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie

For our feast on Christmas day I was planning on making those adorable mini apple pies again, but then ran out of time and decided to make apple butter pumpkin pie instead.  I already had all the ingredients, so that was going to be easy.Here are the main participants in the this tasty Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie.  When I say tasty I mean that from comments received from tasters.  I did not sample this pie personally.  I’m just not into pumpkin, but the rest of my family loves it.  Bummer, I know. Mix your pumpkin and apple butter together.  Does this look tasty or what?Then add brown sugar. Mix it well.   What do you think?  Doesn’t look to appetizing to me.  The kids think it looks great though.  That’s all that matters.Now don’t forget all the spices, eggs, and evaporated milk.  That stuff does wonders for this pie.Rebecca really wanted to make this pie, so she took over. She is becoming quite the talented baker.So are you into this pie? How about now?  Looking tasty, yet? I’m just not into it.  Smells okay, though. Hans convinced me to put whip cream over the entire pie.  I think that was a good call on his part.  I used real whipping cream on this.  All you do is get some heavy whipping cream and whip it up in your mixer until it thickens.  Then stick it in one of those pastry bags and you can make cool designs on your pie.  I think it turned our pretty.  What do you think?  From what I hear it tasted great too!  Try it and let me know what you think.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie 

Ingredients
1 cup apple butter
1 cup fresh or canned pumpkin
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
3 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell
Sweetened whipped cream, for garnish
Directions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Combine apple butter, pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices in a bowl. Stir in eggs. Gradually add milk and mix well. Pour into pie shell. Bake for about 40 minutes or until set.

Thank you to Paula Deen for sharing this recipe.

Mini Pies

Are you ready for some dessert?  This year I made mini pies along with a regular apple butter pumpkin pie.  They turned out great, so I thought I ‘d share.

   I think everyone must have their favorite apple pie and pumpkin pie recipes.  So you should use them.  If not I’ll share mine.  I am short on pictures because, well, I don’t remember why.  I just looked at my pictures and there weren’t many.  Oh well.  Start off by chopping up your apples.  For normal pie I usually do thin slices, but for this I thought chunks would be fun.   Put them into a bowl and add lemon juice, flour, sugar, and cinnamon.  Mix that together really well. Next pull out these super cute jars.  When I saw them earlier this fall I instantly thought pies!  However, I talked myself out of purchasing them.  Then more recently Kellee and I somehow got to discussing this idea and I decided to make pies for Thanksgiving. Pull out your pie crust.  I did store bought this time, but I have a crust recipe I love.  It’s better than store bought.  It doesn’t matter what you use. It all works.  Employ your 8 year old daughter since she loves to bake and cook. For the tops of the pies we took the lids of the mason jars and cut out circles for all of the jars. Take the remaining crust and press it into the jars.  Neat, huh? Once you’ve got all of your crusts in your jars add the filling you just made.  We had a little fun with the tops.  I decided to do a cute little lattice design.  Just cut strips out of the circles you cut out earlier.  Bake them in the oven and here’s how they turn out. We made few pumpkin pies as well.  Aren’t they just darling?  Everyone got their own little pie.

Apple Pie Filling 

• 6 cups apples
• 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
• 1 Tablespoon Flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix all together.  Put filling into pie crusts.  Put a dob of butter onto each mini pie.  Bake at 425 degrees for about 40 minutes. Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie

• 1 cup Apple Butter
• 1 cup pumpkin
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ginger
• 3 eggs beaten
• 3/4 cup evaporated milk

I adapted this recipe from one of my favorite cooks, Paula Deen.