How to make classic, unfussy pumpkin pie from scratch. This is our favorite way to make pumpkin pie. It’s easy, too!
Watch the Video
Related: We love this homemade pumpkin puree!
How to Make Our Favorite Pumpkin Pie
We take it plain or, when feeling feisty, with a dollop of softly whipped cream. The pie filling is creamy, rich and has just enough sweetness to balance some spice from cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. You can easily go for an extra slice at the end of dinner. Don’t tell anyone, but we’ve even stolen a few bites for breakfast.
Making this pumpkin pie from scratch is easy — we think it’s one of the simplest (and tastiest) pies you can make at home.
The filling comes together in minutes and is made from pumpkin puree, eggs, cream, sugar, and fall spices. Everything is mixed together and poured into a pie crust. You can use canned or homemade pumpkin puree in this pie. I love the pie when we’ve used canned (especially since it is so consistent), but making your own puree is easy and means the pie is 100% homemade. (Bonus, you get to roast the pumpkin seeds. Here’s our easy recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds.)
We don’t add too many spices either — we like how the pumpkin gets a chance to shine. If you love spicier pies, just bump up the spice amounts listed in the recipe below.
For the crust, we use our own homemade pie dough. Our favorite crust calls for 100% butter and is pretty simple to make. You can even make it well in advance and refrigerate or freeze it until you are ready to make the full pie. If you have a favorite store-bought pie crust, then use it. It’s completely up to you.
The Crust – Blind Bake or not?
We’re usually partial to blind baking single-crust pies — especially those with liquid fillings. With that said, we don’t blind bake when making pumpkin pie. “Blind baking” means to partially cook the crust before adding the filling, which helps the crust stay crisp and flaky.
With pumpkin pie, though, we love how the crust becomes moistened a little from the filling. The base of the crust browns, but where the filling and crust meet, it’s soft and tender. That’s how we saw our mothers make it as kids, so we just can’t stray.
If you want to blind bake the crust, go for it. Line your pie dish with dough, prick the bottom with a fork and line with foil. Fill the foil with pie weights (or use uncooked rice or beans) then bake in a 450-degree oven for 8 minutes. Remove the foil (and weights) then bake another 5 to 6 minutes, or until golden. From there, fill the crust as usual and bake until the filling sets.
More Pumpkin Recipes
- Easy Pumpkin Mac and Cheese — How to make extra creamy pumpkin mac and cheese in under 1 hour. The perfect Fall dinner!
- Homemade Pumpkin Pancakes — We love these pumpkin pancakes: not too sweet with a hint of spice.
- Seriously Good Pumpkin Cupcakes — These moist spiced pumpkin cupcakes are hard to beat.
- Perfectly Spiced Pumpkin Scones — How to make the best spiced pumpkin scones inspired by Starbucks.
- Chocolate Orange Pumpkin Bread — This quick bread has pumpkin, orange, and is packed with chopped chocolate. Not too sweet, extremely moist and perfect for fall!
- Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte — How to make the best pumpkin spice latte at home with pumpkin puree, coffee, milk, and fall spices. Better than store-bought!
For more pie recipes, check out Our Favorite Apple Pie from scratch, Easy Homemade Blueberry Pie, this delicious Cherry Pie from Scratch and our Fresh Strawberry Pie topped with whipped cream.
Easy Homemade Pumpkin Pie
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
This is a classic, unfussy pumpkin pie recipe. We take it plain or, when feeling feisty, with a dollop of softly whipped cream. The spices are not overpowering, here. If you like your pie spicy, increase the cinnamon and ginger a little. (We’d stay away from increasing the cloves, a 1/4-teaspoon should suffice).
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
Chilled pie dough for one single-crust 9-inch pie, see our pie crust recipe
3 large eggs
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/3 cup (65 grams) light brown sugar
1 (15-ounce) can pure pumpkin puree or 2 cups (440 grams) fresh pumpkin puree, see our homemade pumpkin puree recipe
3/4 cup (175 ml) heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Directions
- Prepare Crust
1Roll out the dough so that it is two inches larger than your pie dish. Gently press dough down into the dish so that it lines the bottom and sides. (Be careful not to pull or stretch the dough). Trim dough to within 1/2-inch of the dish edge.
2Fold edges of dough underneath itself, creating a thicker, 1/4-inch border that rests on the lip of the dish. Crimp edges. (You can see us do this in our pie crust recipe video). Refrigerate while you make the pie filling.
- Make Filling
1Whisk eggs and both sugars together until smooth. Add pumpkin puree, cream, vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and the salt. Stir until well blended.
- Bake the Pie
1Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
2Place the pie on a baking sheet. Pour pumpkin filling into the pie shell.
3Bake pie at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick or thin knife plunged it into the pie, about 2 inches from the edge, comes out clean. Rotate once or twice during baking. If, while the pie bakes, the tops of the crust becomes too dark, cover with a thin strip of aluminum foil.
- To Finish
1Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours or until room temperature. Cut into eight wedges and serve alone or topped with whipped cream. To store, cover the cooled pie loosely with foil or plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator up to 3 days.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Substitute 2 ¼ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Here’s our homemade pumpkin spice blend.
- How to tell the pie is done: Take the pie out of the oven when the majority of the pie looks shiny and set on top. It should jiggle a little like jello, but not much more. The middle will still look wet on top. This is okay, it will continue to cook as the pie cools on the counter. And, as a final test, grab a toothpick or thin knife then plunge it into the pie, about 2 inches from the edge. If it comes out clean, the pie is done. As the pie sits until cooled to room temperature, it will continue to cook and set. We wait for 2 hours. If, when you cut into the pie, the middle does not seem to be set, let it cool a little longer. Or, cut the slice anyway and cover the end with whipped cream. It will still taste great.
- Nutrition facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA database to calculate approximate values.
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
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Recipe updated, originally posted October 2013. Since posting this in 2013, we have added a recipe video and tweaked the recipe to be more clear. – Adam and Joanne
I’ve just made this incredible recipe from left over roasted pumpkin. I didn’t have cloves so I used allspice and a tiny bit of nutmeg. For the crust I used 2 pieces of pre-made puff pastry smashed on top of each other. Delicious and will make again and again! Thank you!
Love this recipe! I keep coming back. I’ve found it works for a shallow pie pan, but I needed to 1.5X the recipe to have enough for my deeper pie dish. One small typo suggestion: eggs and sugar are on the same line, and I’ve almost missed it before.
So glad you love the recipe! You are absolutely right. I think we edited the recipe recently and missed that typo. It is fixed now. Thank you for the heads up 🙂
Hi Joanne, I’d like to try a blind bake crust this time for your pumpkin pie recipe. We love your filling favor. Your blind bake instructions in this recipe are different than in your “easy all butter flaky pie crust” recipe. In this PP recipe you don’t mention pre-heating the baking sheet before placing the pie crust on it? And you use 450 but for less time. I just want to make sure I do a blind bake crust correctly for this PP filling. Love your videos!! Thanks Pat
Hi Pat, We do not blind bake our crust when making pumpkin pie. I prefer the texture of the crust when it the pie filling is added directly to an unbaked crust. If I were to make a cream pie or fresh fruit pie (like this strawberry pie), I would blind bake. All that said, the optional instructions for blind baking the crust will still work. They differ to the easy butter pie crust recipe because they were written at different times. You can use either method.
Hello Adam and Joanne, I have a question that I hope you can help me with. I have only been using your pie crust recipe since I came across it. It’s delicious!! I will give you as much detail in order to give you a better idea of my process. My problem comes to the baking. I have an electric convection oven and a regular electric oven. I usually cook my pumpkin pie on a 9.5” glass dish in the convection oven. Although the top of the crust turns golden brown after cooking, the bottom of the crust looks always white, as if it was raw. I do not get that golden brown bottom layer that can be seen in your pumpkin pie slice. Also, after I place the crust on the dish, I bring it to the freezer because when I have placed it in the refrigerator instead, the crust always starts to sink during the baking (and yes, I do preheat the oven at the temperatures you indicate.) I wonder if I am doing something wrong or if glass is not as good as conducting heat. I thing in your video you use a metal pan… I wonder if that is the difference. Also, when using a convection oven (first time cooking in one, the house came with it) do I need to decrease the cooking temperatures? I have been told that convection ovens cook faster than regular ovens? Is this correct? Thank you so much for your time and your great recipes. Andrea D.
Hi Andrea, Where is your even rack placed in the oven? You might find that the bottom browns a bit better if you move the rack to the lower third of the oven. You can also try placing the pie dish onto an insulated cookie sheet or two baking sheets stacked on top of each other to promote even browning. We do love our USA pan bakeware pie dish, but have made pies with this same crust many times in a pyrex/glass dish without any issues. As far as convection, yes the normal rule of thumb is to reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees F. With that said, many oven models nowadays already do this for you. I’d look up your oven model to see if that’s a feature your oven has. The convection setting might be why the top crust is browning so well! If you still have issues, you can always loosely cover the top with some foil for a little while to slow its browning to give the bottom a chance to catch up.
Thank you!!
This pumpkin pie recipe is sooooo DELICIOUS! I am eating a slice as I leave this review! 🙂 I made it exactly according to the recipe, and it’s just SO yummy! Thank you so much for creating such a scrumptious recipe. 🙂
That’s what we love to read, Leti! So happy that you enjoyed the recipe so much.
I had so much fun yesterday first making your pumpkin puree and then following your pumpkin Pie recipe. Of course, I am also working on the pumpkin seeds and now I know why mine never came out right! I’m making my second pie this evening because the first slipped out of a family member’s hand and shattered on the floor. Thank you for this amazing recipe! Kathy
Hi Kathy, We are thrilled that you have given so many of our pumpkin recipes a try. What a bummer that the pie fell onto the floor! If only we had a recipe to fix that.