Grandma’s 1930s Thanksgiving Hack: The Easiest “Make-Do” Pumpkin Pie

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I’ve got a flight setting over here. [Music] Well, good morning. Welcome back to my kitchen. I appreciate you being here, taking the time. Uh, today we’re going to do a water pie. And I’ve done a water pie about 6 months ago. It’s that’s a depression era pie. They didn’t have a lot. And what they had, they wanted to, you know, make something good, something sweet. So, uh, I had a couple of questions come in on that video. It said, uh, people wonder if you could do this. What if you do that? And that’s the first time I’d ever baked it. So, I had one piece of pie crust rolled up in a a ball frozen. It was in Chiran. It It thawed and um I rolled it out. I didn’t It It was a It’s been in there about a year, so it ain’t the best, but I think it’ll make a pie anyway. Is a little dry. So, we’re going to bake this with a little bit of a change in my first water pie. You can go back and watch. Uh I’ll put a link to that first uh video. You can look at it. It’s really good. It’s surpris surprisingly good. It It’s almost like a like a custard. And there’s no eggs that goes in there. So there there’s no uh milk or anything like that. So let’s get you to the video. It’s early. It’s uh What time is it here? It’s 5 minutes after 4. Yeah. The the good baking time for me. say this is is it easy. You take a pie crust. You can buy one already made. It’s not baked though. You can buy one that you can roll out. It don’t matter. Uh this is my dough recipe. It freezes pretty good, but I may have it. It sure was dry. And I didn’t do any fancy crimping on it. That’s my mother crimp pies with with the end of a fork. So that that’s what you get this morning. So, like I say, it’s easy to assemble. It’s one and a half, make sure I got that right, cups of this clear water. This pie shell is not baked prior. I know this. It’s crazy how this works. And I I don’t have the instructions in front of me, but I uh I looked at them earlier. It’s one cup of sugar and uh I believe two tablespoons of flour I have mixed up here. And I decided I would change it this time. So I put pumpkin pie spice, two tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice in here. Thanksgiving’s coming up uh about 40 days away or so. little over a month. So, you want to make sure your sugar and your flour are all mixed together. And like I say, I added two two tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice. And what I’m going to pour this in. Do not mix it once you pour it in. I know it’s crazy. Some people call this magic pie, but it’s really a depression era pie. So you just take and pour it all over the top of your pie, all over the top of the water. And if this doesn’t work uh because of the pumpkin pie spice, well, I’ll show you. I’ll have the exact measurements in the recipe at the end of the video. I say it’s my standard water pie recipe except I added the pumpkin spice. So, I’ve got four tablespoons of butter. I’m going to put just a hint of vanilla in it. Like I say, this may all be for nothing. Maybe a good teaspoon of vanilla, as I like to say, a fat teaspoon. That’s it, boys and girls. I mean, it’s just that quick. See, I got some on my hedge here. I guess that’ll matter. I don’t know. Want to put it in the oven. Bake it for 30 minutes at 375. And then I got a pie ring to put over the end edge of the crust. And I just took a throwway pie crust. Cut the bottom out. It’s the perfect size 9 in here. So, worked out good. Anyway, after 30 minutes of baking, I’ll put that on there and continue to bake. That way, uh, it did perfect the first time. It didn’t burn the crust. So, I’ll see y’all back here in about 30 minutes or so. All right, I decided to look at it in about 15 minutes. Uh, it’s got about 15 more minutes to get to the first 30 minutes and it looks good. U, I didn’t know what I was expecting to see, but we’ll see if it sets. I say there’s no what you see is what you get there. There’s no eggs, there’s no milk. Of course, there is butter. And on the butter, I went back and looked at my recipe. I put a half a stick in in those four big chunks. So, it calls for five uh five tablespoons of butter. I went back and written it out on a notepad here. Half a cup of flour, one cup of sugar. I put two uh tablespoons of pumpkin pie, stirred them all together, and uh a touch of vanilla. So, I’ll have it all written down at the end of the video, and I’ll just overlay it uh at the end, and you can just stop it and get the recipe and be sure and look at my first water pie. It was really good. I shared it with some neighbors. I said, “Hey, I got a pie I want you to try.” And u they came over and said, “Yeah, that was really good.” They I mean they had no idea and I told them what it was. I couldn’t believe it. Just just watering those the sugar and butter and vanilla on that one. So anyway, I’ll let y’all go and u hope you’re having a good morning. My mornings are always good when I when I I should say when I see the daylight and it is good to see the daylight, but I enjoy getting up early and I worked as a hunting guide for many years. I’m sure if you’ve watched any of my videos, you’ll hear me refer to my border brothers. I worked uh on about a 20,000 acre ranch down in South Texas. guided for deer hunts, exotics. I didn’t own the ranch. Uh matter of fact, I didn’t even own the the the company that had it at least. I just work for them. So, in the mornings, I’d get up like 3:00 in the mornings down there. Uh help to cook. I’d love, you know, I love to cook. So, I’d be in there helping the cook get breakfast cuz about 4:30 the guys’ uh get up out of their campers or whatever they were sleeping in and I come in and eat cuz we served a full breakfast and a lunch sandwich lunch and a big dinner. And so, I would get in and help that. And so, it was always great. And then I was thinking back a while ago, it was early uh to my early years and I worked at that dairy and I don’t know, I was I must have been eight or nine or 10 years old. I would walk there at first and I really never had a bicycle. I had one, but it it was one of those 10 speeds, a real narrow tires and we live in the country you couldn’t ride the thing. And uh I finally got a scooter to ride to the dairy. an old uh 49 or 50 Kushman step through called a Highlander. But I was thinking back while ago uh early morning uh with my dad, we go feed the cow, we go milk the cow, feed the horses and everything at the barn cuz he worked in Dallas. And then u my first deer hunting trip, I must have been I don’t know may maybe 1959, I can’t remember exactly, 1960. Uh we went down to a place called Walnut Springs, Texas. I’ll I’ll never forget what happened. And uh that’s when deer hunters used to go to the field at 5:00. You better be in your deer stand. It wasn’t breaking day until 7 2 hours. So um I’d seen one deer dad brought home, but but I don’t even remember. I can’t remember. I think he took it to the processor. I just think so he’s seen the hamburger he brought in from that. So, we were in this box blind on the ground and uh you know I’d be I was looking out and but to be honest, the only thing I’d really ever seen at that point was uh Omaha Mutual. They had a show called Wild Kingdom and they would have this big old elk come across there with these massive horns, you know, and I think that’s what in my mind that’s what I was looking for all morning as it was breaking day. And I, you know, I was looking out across there and there was a couple of rabbits. I could see that barely breaking day and then got a little bit lighter and a little bit uh seen a couple of squirrels running up down this tree and uh it’s beautiful country at Walnut Springs and uh and still is down there. And I told dad, he said, “Do you see anything?” And I said, “No.” I said, “There’s a couple of dogs down there where that guy there was a the guy that owned the land. He would pet alpha alpha hay to to gather some of the deer and they would feed on it. And I said, “There’s a couple of dogs down there.” And dad turned around. He said, “Those aren’t dogs. Those are deer. They were just little bitty things that, you know, maybe 100 pounds.” And they seem they wereund and something yards off. They seemed real little at that point. There was a couple of dos. And I thought they were dogs. And all morning long, I was expecting Omaha Mutual elk to walk in front of the stand with this giant rack on top of his head. So, oh well, fun fun uh thoughts about when I used to get up early and you hear mama clanging in the kitchen getting stuff ready and it was time to start the day. Didn’t want to miss anything and I I’m still a nerdy riser. What can I say? Bring y’all back and I’ll check this pie in about 15 minutes. I’ll bring you over and see what it looks like at the end of the first 30 minutes and then we’ll cover the crust and uh go from there. I hope it bakes. If not, oh well. So is life. Well, the first 30 minutes is up. Let me turn this off. Let’s look at this and see what it looks like. Oh yeah, I put a little bit more butter in it. I didn’t think my pieces were big enough. So, it looks like it’s baking good. Let me put my ring on it here. You know, they sell pie baking rings, but what the heck? Um, I know throwaway pan works really good. All right. Well, we’ve got 30 more minutes. Looks like the pie crust was a little dry, but you know what? I ain’t the biggest crust eater anyway. Give me the filling and I’m happy. Um, I love fried pies. grew up loving fried pies and but now the problem is unless you got some homemade ones somewhere. It’s the crust is just so thick. I know why they do that. They got a machine that’s laying out the crust and they’re putting it in a little folding deal. I got it. I got that. But on those I just I’ll eat some of the crust, but I just eat the filling out of those things. And matter of fact, if they’re like some of the companies, they make fried pies and they put all the drizzle the sugared stuff off the outside. Those are my least favorites. Yeah. I want a traditional fried pie. No sugar on the outside, sweet filling inside with thin crust. So, uh, if the crust is thin and kind of crispy over here, that’s fine. I I’ll cut it off anyway. And as you can see, I added one more piece of butter. My recipe really calls for a half a stick of butter. And I cut those. I thought I’d cut the the four was a half a stick. After I put it in, I went back and I looked at that stick of butter and thought, “Yeah, you you you still got more butter to add to it. You old dude. You you didn’t get it right.” So that’s why you say extra piece of butter. So anyway, we’ll catch y’all back in about 30 minutes. All right, the final countdown. blast off. All right, let’s see what it’s looking like. Smells good. Looks like it’s starting to set. You can see the bubbles coming up are kind of they’re slow, which means it’s thickening. So, I’m going to turn it off and let it sit here for a little bit. Let it cool down in the oven, and I’ll bring you back uh when I get ready to take it out. I’ve turned it off and let it sit in here about 30 minutes. You can. It’s set. So, let’s get this out of here and get it cooled on down and I’ll bring you back in just a minute. All right, back with you. So, when I turned off the oven, I just let the pie sit there uh slowly cool down in the oven. I could tell it was setting. It’s cool enough I can handle now. So, you see it’s set. whole crust doesn’t look too bad. It’s got a little butter on top. Maybe I put too much. I don’t know. But I’m going to let it cool on down for probably couple of hours anyway. And uh we will take and slice a piece and I’ll get a bite. I know one thing. I was in the back of the house while I was letting this cool down. walk down the hall and oh my god, somebody’s baking uh somebody’s baking something like pumpkin pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread or something. I mean, that’s the smell. So, I’m hoping that uh the pumpkin pie spices all the way through. If not, it might be a layer of the sweet water pile on the bottom with pumpkin on top. But we’ll see here in couple of hours when I come back and slice this up. All right, back with you. It’s about 10:00, so it should have had plenty of time to set. It looks like it is. I should have put it in the fridge. I think it would set better. Um, but I’ve not cut into it, so we’ll see together. Looks like a pumpkin pie. A dark pumpkin pie. So, did it set? Y’all gonna take bets on it? You’ll see either way, no matter what. It seems like it’s about like the water pie with no pumpkin added to it, if I remember right few months ago. The crust is a little tough. Maybe because I waited so long to use it. It looks like it’s set, but it looks like the crust is going to be tough, though. Maybe if I hadn’t waited a year to use it. Let’s see if it’ll peel up from here. This is where it kind of run over the edge here. Hate to break it the first one to get it out of here. Okay, it’s going to take I’m trying to not to break the first piece. I believe it’s going to come out. Let’s see here. I’m going to try a spatula and see if I could Cut the first piece out with a spatula here. I’ve got a plate setting over here. It set the water pie never really set up really hard until I put it in the fridge. I’ll do this one the same way. Let’s get a bite. And I was hoping I could taste it. So, I’ve got some whipped cream going for the second shot. Little whipped cream. Water pie with pumpkin added. Let’s see what it tastes like. Our first bite is not going to be with the whipped cream. Well, the crust is not as tough as I thought it was going to be. See here. It smells really good. It smells like a pumpkin pie. Let’s go in. Dang. It tastes like a pumpkin pie, but maybe not exact. It’s hard to It’s hard to explain. It’s really good. And you can see how easy it was to make. So, while I make this again, shoot out. [Music] Really good. Let’s get a bite with the whipped cream. See what that’s like. Little calf slobers never hurt anybody. [Music] So, is it good? Yeah. Success. Yay. And I’m glad I brought you along for the whole thing. Cuz if it wouldn’t have been and you’d have seen it go in the trash, but I still going to show you how I develop my recipes. That’s part of my love for cooking. Taking something that hadn’t been done before. uh thinking about it ahead like okay well what what do you think this should taste like or look like and this one turned out great. I will just see you on my next video. Thanks for being here spending time with me. You’re welcome to my kitchen anytime. Subscribe if you like this video. Um hit the notification button. It don’t cost anything. Just hit it. It’ll know you Friday. It’ll not notify you when all my videos come up. I said I’m a oneman band here. I film this for my telephone. Um I got a work shop work light over here that I’m illuminating this with. So uh the coloring may not be as best as but my recipes are really good. I promise you. I promise you a country boy can cook out of here. [Music]