Harry Potter; Pumpkin Pasties

“Hungry, are you?”
“Starving,” said Harry, taking a large bite out of a pumpkin pastry.

-Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling

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When I originally made these, I cut the pastry into pumpkin shapes as sweet little desserts.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

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• Author: Bryton Taylor

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Ingredients

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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.)

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Instructions

Pastry crust

1. Pulse together the flour, castor sugar, salt, cold butter and ice water.
2. Too dry, add extra ice water a tbsp at a time. Too wet, add more flour bit by bit.
3. Once mixed well together, knead it into a ball, wrap with clingwrap and place in the fridge for an hour.

Filling

1. In a bowl, stir together the white sugar, pumpkin pie spice and pureed pumpkin.

Put it together

1. Preheat oven to 400oF/~200oC.
2. Roll out the dough to 1/8 inch or 3-4 mm thick, and punch out pumpkins with a pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter.
3. For half of the punched out dough, put slices in for ventilation.
4. My pumpkin cookie cutter cut shapes about 10cm wide.
5. 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.
6. 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

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