So You Bought the Wrong Milk for Your Pumpkin Pie (2024)

FAQs

So You Bought the Wrong Milk for Your Pumpkin Pie? ›

If this has happened to you, and you've suddenly find yourself with a can or evaporated milk when your pumpkin pie recipe calls for condensed—or vice versa—do not panic, my friend: You can make pumpkin pie with either one. Either milk can be used to add rich, creamy body to your pie.

Pies with too much evaporated milk formed blisters on top.

Though the interior of the filling had a great, creamy texture. The flavor was ever-so-slightly muted and had a hint of milkiness to it.

While many recipes call for it, you can absolutely make an outstanding pumpkin pie without evaporated milk. If your recipe calls for one can of evaporated milk (as most do), you can substitute 1 ½ cups of cream or half and half, or a combination of the two. You can also use milk (any kind from whole to skim).

During my testing of pumpkin pies, I tried lots of different milk options – heavy whipping cream, regular milk (I used 2% in my testing), sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk. Ultimately, I found heavy whipping cream to be the best. It produced the creamiest pie in my opinion.

You're ready to serve your homemade pumpkin pie, but when you try to cut it, it's too runny to get any clean slices. Why this happens: The pie was underbaked, or the oven temperature wasn't high enough.

Adding too much moisture to your cake, like milk, buttermilk, or oil, can cause it to fall apart. There won't be a proper balance between the wet and dry ingredients. This will cause the structure to not be able to stay together because there is too much moisture in the batter.

For a creamy taste without the cream, try evaporated (canned) milk! Evaporated milk is made by removing water from fresh milk and then heating it. Heating the milk gives it the creamy, slightly cooked taste and darker colour. When mixed with an equal amount of water, it can be substituted for fresh milk in recipes.

Evaporated milk: A can of evaporated milk lends richness and helps thicken the pie filling.

Nestlé states that Carnation evaporated milk can be substituted in a 1:1 ratio for regular whole milk. To test this claim, we opened a few cans to make sponge cake, vanilla pudding, and Parker House rolls, and compared the results with the same recipes made with regular whole milk.

One cup of heavy cream can be replaced with one cup of evaporated milk, or three-quarters of a cup of milk plus one-third of a cup of butter. Editor's note: Evaporated milk lends a slightly toasty, caramel taste, so keep that in mind when adding it to recipes.

Which is richer evaporated milk or heavy cream? ›

The bottom line is that heavy cream has more than twice the calories and five times the fat content of evaporated milk. The first thing to notice in the label comparison above is that the serving size for heavy cream (1 tablespoon) is half the serving size of evaporated milk (2 tablespoons).

Very often flour or cornstarch is used, but in certain instances tapioca, arrowroot and potato starch can also help achieve the desired consistency. Tapioca starch is preferable for products that will be frozen because it will not break down when thawed. We like tapioca in blueberry, cherry or peach pies.

Make evaporated milk by heating 2 ¼ cups of regular milk and gently boiling it down until it reduces to 1 cup. This exact method is used to make evaporated milk for commercial retail. Evaporated milk is most commonly made with 2 percent milk, but whole milk, 1 percent, or skim will also work.

Use other milk: Instead of using heavy cream in this pumpkin pie without evaporated milk, you can use buttermilk, half-and-half, powdered milk, etc. Replacing heavy cream with another milk will change the texture and flavor.

Overcooking your pie will also lead to a soggy bottom crust. A pumpkin pie filling is an egg-based custard, and, like all egg custards, it will weep liquid if those eggs become overcooked (think: the watery pool that builds up underneath overcooked scrambled eggs).

But if you bake your pie and it's STILL runny try letting it cool down (if you haven't yet) and it will likely thicken as it cools, put it back in the oven again to activate the thickener or drain off some of the liquid off and then put it back in the oven.

Some bakers use milk or buttermilk in their pie crust. Thanks to their milk solids, both will help crust brown and add a bit of tenderness. But the classic liquid in pie crust is water — ice water, to be precise.

Curdling Occurs When The Eggs In Your Filling Overcook

This is why it's better to bake your pie at lower temperatures once the crust has set since eggs begin to solidify at 160 degrees Fahrenheit.