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The Season of the Pumpkin Pie

The 300 or so pumpkin pies sold at the Dahlia Bakery every Thanksgiving are the end result of a process I like to call “The Season of the Pumpkin Pie.” This begins the previous winter when Jackie Cross, Farmer-in-Chief at our Prosser Farm in eastern Washington, carefully chooses Sugar Pie pumpkin seeds from about a dozen different seed companies and adds them to the saved seeds from her favorite varieties of the previous year. The Prosser Farm team “starts” the seeds in the greenhouse in the chill of February, and the seedlings are eventually planted outdoors two plants per hill of soil in May. It’s fun to watch the pumpkins set fruit in July and begin to ripen in early August while dreaming of their eventual destination as custardy pies. Fully ripened and golden-orange by the end of September, these plump 3# pumpkins are not frost tolerant, but they’re sweetest if harvested as close as possible to the first frost. This year Jackie and her team picked 500 pounds of pumpkins in the dark by the headlights of their two tractors, one set on either side of the squash patch.

The pumpkins are trucked from Prosser to Seattle for the next part of “The Season of the Pumpkin Pie.” In November, our pastry chef, Stacy Fortner, and her team cut up the pumpkins and dry roast them, making sure to get good caramelization around the edges. Then they are pureed, drained if necessary, and mixed into a sweetly-spiced custard which is poured into prebaked pastry shells and baked in the oven until set. A flotilla of fabulous pumpkin pies, the tops finished with sparkly granulated sugared cranberries and powdered sugared pastry leaves, are then loaded into our transfer trucks to journey five blocks from the Dahlia Workshop to the Dahlia Bakery where they are boxed for customer pick-up.

“The Season of the Pumpkin Pie” comes full circle on your Thanksgiving tables when you slice the pies, dollop vanilla scented softly whipped cream on top, and enjoy them with family and friends. If you want to experience the whole process, we have two pumpkin pie recipes in our new The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook which are tried and true. I will be at the bakery saying “hi” , serving hot cider and signing cookbooks, Wednesday, November 21st, noon until 1:00 pm, so I hope to see you soon.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Baking!


Tom and Jackie

P.S. – A note from our marketing team- there are still so many disturbing reports about the state of affairs in the wake of Hurricane Sandy that we are compelled to act. With a group of our fine restaurant colleagues we are hosting a Red Cross fundraiser Tuesday November 20th. Lots of tasty food , good music and 100% of your $75.00 goes to the cause. Please consider joining us.

And on a lighter subject we are gearing up for the holidays with our much anticipated Cookbook Social December 4th. This is a chance to meet local authors, sample some of the recipes and buy beautiful books. Tickets available here.



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