Faith Saunders' Pumpkin Pie Recipe

I’m happy to report that I found my only other family heirloom recipe, which is my great grandmother Faith Cook Saunders’ recipe for pumpkin pie. (She and my grandmother Lena Sarah Weyman happen to have been born one year apart). This is the recipe my mother always used when making pumpkin pie, and she used the pie crust recipe for all her other pies. Mom was a good pie maker, and I remember she always made three of any kind of pie at a time. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a better pie crust than hers. Her pies didn’t last. As you will recall, Faith was referred to as “Ma” in her later years.

Ma’s Custard Pumpkin Pie

One tin pumpkin 28 ounce

One teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon each: cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves

Four eggs, well-beaten

One cup white sugar

One cup yellow sugar

Four cups milk

Butter about the size of a walnut

Combine first three ingredients. Add eggs well-beaten with all of the sugar. Slowly add milk and then butter. Mix well and put in uncooked pie shells. Hot oven to start and cook until brown on top and set.

This makes three or four small pies.

Ma’s Pie Crust Pasty

1 ½ cups pastry flour

½ cup of shortening

¾ teaspoon salt

¼ cup ice water

Makes enough for two crusts, or one pie, top and bottom.