Pumpkin Pie - easy recipe

Pumpkins are fun, let's face it.

Not only do people love playing with pumpkins come October, carving them into ever-intricate caricatures, but they also love the versatility of pumpkins, which can be used for sweet and savoury dishes.

Having posted a photograph of my no-baked pumpkin pie on Facebook last year, I was asked repeatedly to post the recipe - which I promised.

Now, three months later, here it is: No-Bake Pumpkin Pie.

No-bake pumpkin pie. Source @simoneysunday

You can either use condensed milk or, which I prefer, 300g (approximately 11oz) low-fat cream cheese, such as Philadelphia.

You will need: 
One can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk or 300g low-fat cream cheese
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg and some for sprinkling on top.
1 sachet Dr Oetker vegetarian gelatine (one sachet sets 1 pint of liquid)
1/4 cup water (approx 60ml)
16oz of soft pumpkin (453g)

Whipped cream for the topping (if you like)

Some pumpkin seeds for decoration

1 sheet of pre-cooked puff pastry*

How to: 
After chopping up the pumpkin (save a good hour or two for this - cutting and chopping a pumpkin, I have found, is a job for lumberjacks), reduce it in a pan with a LITTLE bit of water until soft. Not too much water - you will have too much liquid and you'll need to strain it.

Clean and save the pumpkin seeds.

When you've got 16oz of softened pumpkin, blend it gently until it is smooth.

Add gelatine to water in a medium-sized saucepan. I tend to use half a pint of water as the pumpkin is quite liquid (as is the condensed milk).  Leave it to stand for 1 minute, before cooking on a low heat for two to three minutes until all the gelatine is dissolved.

Meanwhile, whisk together the condensed milk (or cream cheese), cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg until smooth. Add this to the gelatine/water mix in the pan, and stir constantly.

Cook for a further 5 mins or so until the mixture is slightly thickened. After removing from heat, stir in the pumpkin until blended.

Pour it into the pre-cooked pastry dish and leave to set in the fridge until firm.

When cooked and cooled, spoon the pumpkin mixture into the crust. Put in the fridge for 3-4 hours or until firm. Decorate with a sprinkle of nutmeg and pumpkin seeds.

Serve with whipped cream if desired.

*Cooking the pastry
I use ready-roll pastry as it's so much easier, but it will need to be cooked before using.

Put the pastry into a suitable pie case, press down the edges with a thumb or spoon to make a pattern, cover the bottom of the pastry with baking beans (to make sure the pastry base doesn't rise in the middle), and bake according to instructions.

Christmas Cake Ice-Cream

Icing the cake is getting more and more complicated every year - and more competitive, as people post perfectly smooth and detailed cakes on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I attempted a Snow Globe and it didn't work very well. I think I bit off more than I can chew. Still, while I am no icing queen, I do know how to bake a flavoursome, moist and boozy Christmas cake and it does taste a lot better than it looks!

And I do know a bit about basic icing techniques. One of the first things to do is to level off the top of the fruit cake once it has cooled/is ready out of the cupboard, by taking a sharp knife - I use a bread knife - to create a flat base for the marzipan and icing.

This left me with the equivalent of a large slice of fruit cake from the top of the cake. Did I jettison this leftover? Did this anti-waste campaigner throw it away? Mais Non! I kept it to one side. And today I finally did something with the crumbly goodness: Christmas Cake Ice-Cream.

I followed the same recipe that I posted earlier this year - 600g of whipped cream, 1 tin of condensed milk (with a bit of spoon and finger-licking when nobody was watching) and once this was mixed, I crumbled the cake into the mixture. It was enough to permeate the whole ice-cream so that every scoopful, once it has set (approximately 8 hours), will be full of cakey deliciousness.

Of course not everyone has the time or the patience to make their own fruitcake, so I would suggest this is a good way to get rid of the last one or two slices of the shop-bought Christmas cake, rather than throw it out once 1 Jan and its 'good intentions' come in. After all, ice-cream can be stored in the freezer for a few months.

Oh and here's the strange-looking cake... links to my Instagram page