Pumpkin Pie is a popular Thanksgiving treat in the USA, and making it is a good way to use the flesh from carved Halloween Jack-o'-lanterns. It's really easy to do, but it can be an incredibly sweet and calorific dessert. We used a basic no-frills recipe.

Our ingredients were:

• Ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
• Fresh pureed pumpkin flesh (approximately a tin's worth)
• 150g Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 0.5 tsp ground nutmeg
• 0.5 tsp ground ginger
• 0.5 tsp salt

My husband has made a pie before using tinned pumpkin, so our approach was to make the fresh pumpkin have a similar consistency and to use a similar quantity. When we pureed it in the food processor it looked a bit wet, so we drained it with a sieve.

We have a 10 inch loose-base pie tin. We lined it with the pastry, and blind baked for about 20 minutes at 190°C or Gas Mark 5. The pumpkin puree was mixed well with all the other ingredients in a bowl, then poured into the pastry pie case. It was returned to the oven for about 45 minutes at the same temperature until cooked. Once cooled, we served it with Crème Fraîche to contrast the pie's intense sweetness.