Pumpkin pie

This is based on a recipe from the all recipes website ("Homemade Pumpkin Pie by Randy Scott"). I've removed the salt and the ginger, and use more pumpkin. I used this recipe to feed the office: it fills a large mixing bowl and a 20cm cake tin to the brim. I reckon 20 good servings. It tastes best when just cooked (as most things do), and has the consistency of an egg custard (it also breaks the same way). I've been known to refer to is as 'pumpkin custard'.

Ingredients

• 1 whole, large pumpkin
• 1 410g tin of evaporated (NOT condensed) milk
• 175g dark brown soft sugar
• 350g flour
• 200g Butter
• 125ml cold water for pastry, a few litres for the pumpkin boiling
• 2 eggs (beaten)
• Half a teaspoon of cinammon
• Half a teaspoon of nutmeg

Instructions

First, the pastry. Rub the butter into the flour, add cold water until the pastry is moist and holds together.
Shape the pastry into a ball. Put the pastry in the fridge to cool (the pastry is Very short, and will fall apart easily. Putting it in the fridge to cool makes it more manageable)
Now, core the pumpkin. This is very messy. Remove pumkin skin, seeds and stringy bits - leaving only the light orange flesh. Chop this into chunks (potato wedge sized)
Transfer the pumpkin chunks to an enormous saucepan filled with water. Set the hob to full heat. When the water boils, reduce the heat and simmer.
Whilst the pumpkin is simmering, roll the pastry out to a quarter-centimetre thickness (roll it out on baking paper that has been well floured).
Transfer the pastry into a pie dish, pressing into the sides. It is quite likely the pastry will break whilst transferring; just use some excess to cover the holes. Any pastry above the dish line will burn during cooking, so remove it now.
After 30 minutes of boiling/simmering, drain the pumpkin, transfer it to a mixing bowl and then mash it to a pulp
Add the milk, eggs, sugar and spice to the mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, mix to a smooth consistency.
Transfer the mixture into the pie dish.
Heat the over to gas mark 5. Place pie dish at the bottom of the oven and bake until a knife comes through the custard relatively cleanly (no large chunks should attach itself to the knife).

What can go wrong

The mixture is watery. It will drip in the oven - this isn't something to worry about.
The pastry is extremely thin and hard to deal with. Repeated cooling may be required.
The pastry also may cook before the mixture (at the very least, the top will brown significantly). Just cut the top of it off.