Pumpkin Tart

We use a recipe for a Perfect Pumpkin pie for this.  It does leave enough crust and pumpkin to make a small pie or tart if you have another small dish.  We just usually freeze the pumpkin pie mixture to use when we are ready for another.  We prefer using fresh pumkin too.  We started using this, this past year when our wonderful neighbors Bob and Tamera gave us a pumpkin and the pie recipe.   To make fresh Pumpkin we cut the pumpkin in half, and remove all seeds.  Place an a lined baking sheet meaty side up and bake at 350°F for 1 to 1/2 hours (time varies based on size of pumpkin).  To check doneness push a from into the meat it will be done when it is soft.  We remove the skin and place the meat into 15 oz bags and use our FoodSaver Smart Seal Vacuum Sealer.   We just bring them out of the freezer, defrost and blend up when we are ready to use it.  Just as we do with our Pecan Pie we also use the Fall Pie Cutters (which have 4 leaves we can use to cut out to place on top of our pie) which I bought from William-Sonoma.

Ingredients

Single Crust:

• 1 1/3 cups Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
• ½ teaspoon finely ground sea salt
• ½ stick well-chilled Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening Sticks
• OR ½ cup well-chilled Crisco® All-Vegetable Shortening
• 3 to 6 tablespoons ice cold water

Filling:

• 15 ounces pumpkin (fresh is best but canned will do)
• 1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp finely ground sea salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425°.
• To prepare crust BLEND flour and salt in medium mixing bowl.
• CUT chilled shortening into 1/2-inch cubes. Cut in chilled shortening cubes into flour mixture, using a pastry blender, in an up and down chopping motion, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some small pea-sized pieces remaining.
• SPRINKLE half the maximum recommended amount of ice cold water over the flour mixture. Using a fork, stir and draw flour from bottom of bowl to the top, distributing moisture evenly into flour. Press chunks down to bottom of bowl with fork. Add more water by the tablespoon, until dough is moist enough to hold together when pressed together.
• Gently press mixture into a 4-inch circle on 2 sheets of overlapping heavy-duty plastic wrap; cover with 2 additional sheets of overlapping plastic wrap. Roll dough, still covered, into a 12-inch circle. Freeze dough 10 minutes or until plastic wrap can easily be removed.
• Remove dough from freezer. Remove top 2 sheets of plastic wrap; let the dough stand 1 minute or until pliable. Fit dough, plastic wrap side up, into a Nonstick Tart Pan, 9 1/2"  which we purchased from William-Sonoma, allowing dough to extend over edge. Remove remaining plastic wrap. Press dough into bottom and up sides of pie plate. Press around edges of the Tart Pan and this will easily cut the crust forming perfectly to your tart pan.
• To prepare filling, whisk pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices and salt in medium bowl until smooth. 
• Pour into crust in tart pan. 
• Bake for 15 minutes.
• Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue backing 25-30 minutes, or until a knife inserted 1 inch from crust comes out clean. 
• Cool and remove the tart from the outer ring.  Slice and garnish as desired.
• Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.