Mini Pumpkin Pies

December, and the Christmas preparations begin with the quiet determination of a woman who will not allow a pandemic to diminish the holiday. The fruitcake was made two weeks ago and is curing in the pantry. The stockings are on the mantle — five, because I still hang Joy's, and the hanging is the stubbornness, and the stubbornness is the love. The tree will go up this weekend. The tree will be smaller this year because the audience is smaller, but the lights will be the same, and the sameness of the lights is the argument against the darkness.

Mama does not know it is December. She does not know the year. She lives in a timelessness that is both prison and paradise — prison because she cannot locate herself in the calendar of her own life, paradise because she is free from the anxiety that the calendar produces in the rest of us, the anxiety of time passing, of deadlines approaching, of years accumulating. Mama accumulates nothing. Mama lives in the moment. And the moment is the kitchen, and the kitchen is warm, and the warmth is enough.

Robert is building Christmas presents in the workshop — the annual sawdust-tells that I pretend not to notice and that he pretends are invisible. This year the sawdust is maple (light, sweet-smelling, the wood of cutting boards and small boxes). I do not speculate. I wait. The waiting is the patience I have learned from Mama and from the roux and from the twenty-three years of a marriage that has taught me that the best things arrive on their own schedule and that the schedule is not mine to determine.

I made Mama's gingerbread — the dark, dense, molasses-rich cake that belongs to December the way hymns belong to Sunday. The gingerbread filled the house with the smell of Christmas-approaching, and the smell was the decoration I needed most: not lights, not garland, not the tree, but the smell of a recipe that has been in the family for three generations and that carries, in its spice and its sweetness, the memory of every December that preceded this one.

Mama’s gingerbread was the smell I needed most this year — but the recipe I found myself reaching for next, the one that could carry that same warm-spice weight through the rest of December, was this one: Mini Pumpkin Pies, small enough to share without ceremony, rich enough with cinnamon and ginger to fill a room the way a hymn fills a church. When the audience is smaller, you make things in miniature — the love is the same size, just concentrated. These go on the same counter where the gingerbread cooled, and the house smells like it always has, which is the whole point.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 12 mini pies

Ingredients

1 package (14 oz) refrigerated pie crust dough (or 1 batch homemade, enough for 12 rounds)
1 can (15 oz) pure pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Whipped cream, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin. Roll out the pie crust on a lightly floured surface to about 1/8-inch thickness.
Cut the crusts. Using a 4-inch round cutter (or the rim of a wide glass), cut 12 rounds from the dough. Press each round gently into a muffin cup, pressing up the sides to form a small shell. Refrigerate the tin while you make the filling.
Mix the filling. In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, eggs, evaporated milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla until completely smooth and uniform in color.
Fill the shells. Remove the muffin tin from the refrigerator. Ladle or spoon the pumpkin filling into each crust shell, filling to just below the rim — about 3 tablespoons per cup.
Bake. Bake at 375°F for 22–26 minutes, until the filling is just set at the center (it will have a very slight jiggle but will not slosh) and the crust edges are golden.
Cool completely. Allow the pies to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then run a thin knife around each edge and lift them out carefully onto a wire rack. Cool at least 30 minutes before serving. The filling firms as it cools.
Serve. Top with a small dollop of whipped cream if you like, or serve plain. These keep well covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mini Pumpkin Pies — The Spice That Smells Like Every December at Once