“Hungry, are you?”
-Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
“Starving,” said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pastry.

Pumpkin pasties were one of the first treats in the wizarding world that Harry samples on the Hogwarts Express, which perhaps is why pumpkin pasties are one of the ‘must-haves’ on a Harry Potter party menu.
A pastie (also written pasty) is an English term, pronounced “pah-stee”, and has a long history dating back to the 13th century. Its name indicates the shape the pastry is cooked in, described as circular pastry, folded into a quarter moon with blunted horns and crimped edges.
The best known pasty is the Cornish pasty, which initially contained meat, turnips and onion. However, pasties, in general, have had a variety of fillings over the centuries, from savoury to sweet.
In the 19th century, it became the standard lunch of tin miners and wasn’t uncommon to put savoury on one end, and a sweet filling, like apple, at the other, allowing both the main meal and dessert to be held in one pasty.
Today the generic pasty can have any filling and is also found as smaller sized pasties for a daintier eating experience.
Making pumpkin pasties in advance
- Prep the dough recipe, but instead of placing in the fridge, place in a freezer bag or container, and place in the freezer. If making pumpkin puree from scratch, you can prep this in advance and freeze as well. This can be a week or two beforehand.
- Remove from the freezer two days before your party to defrost.
- The day before your party, bake up your pumpkin pasties.
When I originally made these, I cut the pastry into pumpkin shapes as sweet little desserts. Technically, this no longer is a pasty, since it’s not in the D/ quarter moon shape, however, at the end of the day, this is your party, so it’s up to you how you serve these up! The cuteness of the pumpkin shapes makes them a wonderful party treat.

Harry Potter; Pumpkin Pasties
Ingredients
Pastry crust
- 2 1/2 cups plain flour
- 2 tbsp castor sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 226g chunks of cold butter
- 3/4 cup of ice water
Filling
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
- 1 cup of pureed pumpkin (canned or homemade works. Steam a chopped-up-seeds-scooped-out pumpkin -butternut is my fav here in Australia- until mushy. Scoop the pumpkin mush/pulp from the skin into a blender and turn on until pureed.)
Instructions
Pastry crust
- Pulse together the flour, castor sugar, salt, cold butter and ice water.
- Too dry, add extra ice water a tbsp at a time. Too wet, add more flour bit by bit.
- Once mixed well together, knead it into a ball, wrap with clingwrap and place in the fridge for an hour.
Filling
- In a bowl, stir together the white sugar, pumpkin pie spice and pureed pumpkin.
Put it together
- Preheat oven to 400oF/~200oC.
- Roll out the dough to 1/8 inch or 3-4 mm thick, and punch out pumpkins with a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter.
- For half of the punched out dough, put slices in for ventilation.
- My pumpkin cookie cutter cut shapes about 10cm wide.
- Scoop a tbsp of pumpkin mix onto on pumpkin cut out, stretch edges slightly and place a ‘ventilation pumpkin cut out’ on top, and crimped the edges together.
- Place these on a baking tray and place in the oven for about 20-25 minutes. They’ll be golden when they’re ready to come out.
Notes
Recipe is adapted from the unofficial Harry Potter cookbook
Hi! I just wanted to tell you that your Website, IS AWESOME. The pumpkin pastie recipe was a huge hit with my friends. They cant wait for me to make more. Thank you for Sharing it on your Website ^^
Thanks Emily, glad they worked for you!x
I LOVE the packaging for the Pumpkin Pasties, but was wondering what the finished measurements are, for the completed box. I can’t wait to make the pasties!
Thank you,
Karen
Aww this is great!!! And the box too! Thank you!!
xoxo
dePepi.com
How many pasties will this make?
What size paper does your printable work on? I would like to print these for my DDs party, but need to purchase some paper first but my computer doesn’t tell me what size works best.
I printed onto international A4 paper size.
How do I make the box…?
Hello Bryton, I’m trying to find the download the free printable box for the pumpkin pastries ? I see the recipe but just don’t know where to click on to for the box . Thanks!
I’ll send it through to you. But for anyone else wondering, if you click on the box template, it’ll open in another page- from there, you just need to right click on it to download.
I can’t seem to download it either 🙁
★★★★★
I tried this recipe, and I followed it to the dot. However, I ended up needing an extra 1.5 cups of flour. Any idea why?
Did you use cardstock or regular printer paper?
I used cardstock, but nothing too thick, otherwise it jams!
Is there a way to make this gluten free? I love your blog, but it’s king of hard having gluten sensitivity!
Hi Lavender, If you can find a gluten free shortcrust pastry recipe, substitute with that.
This is amazing. Thank you!
I tried making these and for the most part, they turned out delicious. I also required quite a bit more flour than the recipe calls for. Also, I would recommend making more filling (just in case). I ran out and had to put jam in the last few pasties. All in all, it was still a very nice recipe, though. :9