Tired Of Pumpkin Pie? Try This Old-School Pumpkin Dessert Instead

It's no secret that pie crusts are tricky to make. Despite being a fairly adept baker, I tend to avoid pies. It's difficult to strike a balance, making something that is flaky but still intact via the perfect ratio of water, shortening, and flour. Even if you buy your pie to sidestep a possible debacle in the kitchen, you might simply be bored with eating the exact same treat every single year. This coming holiday season, solve that problem with a 19th-century recipe that forgoes the crust altogether. An old-school Thanksgiving dessert you should bring to your table is pumpkin pudding.

The pudding is more or less what it sounds like: pumpkin pie filling sans crust. It's a bit like pumpkin mousse, if you will. There are multiple versions of pumpkin pudding to try making, but there are some constants from recipe to recipe. They tend to include some type of alcohol, such as white wine or brandy. There are also the usual ingredients for pumpkin pie filling like pureed pumpkin (obviously) as well as whipped cream, sugar, and eggs. Naturally, they contain classic spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and mace. Depending on your recipe, you may find some more niche ingredients like rosewater as well.

Making homemade pumpkin pudding is fairly simple; just blend the ingredients according to instructions and transfer to an oven-safe container. Most recipes require the mixture to be baked in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for upwards of an hour and a half. Once done, you can top it off with a cream-based sauce or cold whipped cream.

A refrain you've likely heard multiple times regarding old-school foods is this: The origins are murky. The same is true for pumpkin pudding. However, we can infer it was ostensibly relatively popular in the 1800s based on the fact it's cropped up in so many recipes over the years.

Once-famed cookbook author Eliza Leslie published a version in her 1840 "Directions in Cookery, in its Various Branches." A pumpkin pudding recipe can also be found in "Miss Leslie's Complete Cookery," first published in 1837 and updated throughout the years. First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln once owned a copy of this book and possibly learned to cook by reading it.

One version of the recipe was found on a note handwritten by a woman named Maria Lefferts in 1820. Lefferts resided in a Brooklyn-based home that is now a historic site in New York City, and her papers are kept in the Brooklyn Historical Society. This recipe differs a little from other versions, however. It calls for pouring your pudding in a puff pastry placed over a soup bowl, making it more akin to classic pumpkin pie than other recipes. In other words, if you opt to try this recipe, you won't evade the hassle of making pie crusts.