By Winter Music

With Thanksgiving on the way and fall leaves drifting through the air, it feels like the perfect time to start baking sweet treats. This is a simple pie recipe, perfect for Friendsgiving or finally getting a chance to use the oven your dorm came equipped with.

While this is a simple recipe, it’s sure to impress any house gathering you bring it to and it’s basic enough to serve as a base recipe for anyone to add to or tailor to their tastes. If you have a real sweet tooth, add half a cup of sugar since the recipe itself is light on sweetness. If you wanted to make it a pumpkin pie cheesecake, do the same while adding an extra egg and 8 ounces of cream cheese, the world is your pie shell.

Ingredients

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

2 eggs

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 deep, 9-inch pie crust — I used store-bought, but you can make your own.

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 425 F and make sure the pie crust is ready and on a stable surface.

Step 2

Add eggs, canned pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk and spices in a bowl, mix until smooth — you can substitute spices for pumpkin pie spice.

Step 3

Pour pumpkin pie mixture into the pie crust and tap the sides to push air bubbles to the surface.

Step 4

Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350 F. Continue baking for 45 minutes — it might look a little more puffy than you expect, but as it cools it’ll begin to look more like a classic pumpkin pie.

Step 5

Wait two hours to cool, then enjoy with whipped cream or ice cream.