{TWD} Sour Cream Pumpkin Tart

I love pumpkin pie. More specifically, I love a particular pumpkin pie. In fact, at my daughter's recent wedding, she had pie rather than wedding cake, and requested that the caterer make our Molasses Spice Pumpkin Pie recipe as one of the flavors. The caterer, a wonderful restaurant in central New York called Circa, was happy to oblige. Additionally, Circa put the pie on their own menu the day before the wedding. Apparently it sold out quickly.

I will eat just about any pumpkin pie, even though they typically fall short of pumpkin pie perfection of our family recipe, and I'm always happy to try a new pumpkin pie recipe (but I usually sneak in extra spices!)

This week the assigned recipe for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group is Sour Cream Pumpkin Tart (Pie) which was a perfect choice because we could all bake this as our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie last week and post it today. And you can bake it now, just in case you're like me and didn't get enough pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving day.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Judy of the blog Judy's Gross Eats is hosting this week's pumpkin selection. Head over to her blog for the recipe.

- Dorie Greenspan gives two alternate ways to present this pumpkin dessert: as a traditional pie or baked into a tart shell. I'd never baked a pumpkin tart, so this is the route I chose.

- I made 1/4 recipe, which yielded enough filling for one little tart and two ramekins.

- Instead of light brown sugar, I used dark brown, and a spiced dark rum rather than plain rum.

- Because I'm all about the autumn spices, I generously heaped the measure of the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and added a bit of black pepper.

the verdict:

I served one of the ramekins to JDE, and this was our conversation:

JDE: "this stuff is really good."
me: " I added some extra spices. Do you think it's too spicy?"
JDE: "Is that even possible?"

Later, I got to taste the tart myself. The recipe makes a very good pumpkin filling and I was glad I'd experimented with tart dough (rather than the more common pie crust). The added spices gave it a little kick, which was beautifully mellowed by the sour cream in the recipe and some additional softly whipped heavy cream on top.

While I can't say that this recipe reaches the pinnacle of perfection of my usual favorite pumpkin pie, it was a lovely tart, and I'd gladly eat it again. Most of all, I'm grateful for the technique of adding pumpkin filling to a tart shell, which I will definitely keep in my repertory.

Today's other TWD recipe was Normandy Apple Tart, which I posted here.