I was combing the farmers market a few weeks ago and spied some of the most beautiful pumpkins. One of the vendors commented on how much her husband loved a pie made out of these particular blue pumpkins, Jarrahadale (I just call them BLUE pumpkins :-).  So I bought a blue pumpkin and then a small regular pie pumpkin. 

The inside of the blue is a gorgeous orange.  After I cut open the pumpkin I just put it on a cookie sheet and baked about 30 min. in the oven to soften the meat.  I did the pie pumpkin the same way and then ran each “brand” of pumpkin through the food processor to make the mash.  I bagged them in 2 cup increments, which is usually what a pie calls for, and froze them for later. 

Then I had a FABULOUS idea!  How ’bout a PUMPKIN PIE PARTY where the guests each bring a pie made with different types of pumpkin.  This is what we did…..same crust, same pie plate, same recipe (oops, we used duck eggs and I bet no one else did!), DIFFERENT pumpkin. 

We had the blue pumpkin (the darkest brown in color), the regular orange pie pumpkin (light orange), the Libby’s canned pumpkin (far back) and then we threw in a frozen pie for real taste comparison (FYI-Marie Calendar’s).

We did some very serious tasting :-)  Whipped cream was NOT allowed until we had tasted the raw pumpkin pie.  We tagged each pie with a color tab and then put that same color tab on each plate on each piece.

Lots of discussion went into each taste……

And after all the tasting, cussing and discussing, we arrived at a majority answer to our question….

What IS the best pumpkin for the ultimate Pumpkin Pie??

Canned Libby’s won!  We all decided it might be because our generation is used to the canned product.  We thought that the Libby’s had the best texture and flavor of them all.  We did agree that if you didn’t taste them side by side, there might not be much difference.  Sadly, the frozen pie lacked flavor next to the others.  I secretly was hoping frozen might be a contender!

So, next time you’re looking to go all out homemade, save yourself some time and use the can AND the Libby’s recipe!

PS… NO, Libby’s has no idea who I am or where I live and did not pay me for this adventure  ;-)