I get a lot recipe and story ideas sent to my inbox and most of the time they will get deleted without a second thought. However, a while back a got a recipe for pumpkin pie tamales. I was super intrigued. I love tamales and I love pumpkin pie. I have never had a sweet tamale before. I just couldn’t seem to get this recipe out of my head, so I’m sharing it with you today. I thought some of you might find it just as interesting as I do.
Pumpkin Pie Tamales
Yield: 40-60 tamales
Recipe courtesy of IMUSA
Ingredients:
- 40 to 60 dried corn husks
- 7 cups maseca corn flour
- 3 cups packed brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 – 29-ounce cans of pumpkin puree
- 4 sticks of butter, melted
- 2 cups of warm milk
- 2 cups of walnuts, chopped
- 12 ounces of raisins
Directions:
- Fill a large bowl with warm water and soak corn husks until softened, about 30 minutes.
- In an extra large bowl add Maseca corn flour and the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix together making sure that all of the clumps are broken up with your fingers. Then add all of the wet ingredients and once again, use your hands to mix the corn flour. Add more water as needed until you achieve the consistency of peanut butter. Fold in the walnuts and raisins.
- Assemble the tamales by using a rubber spatula to spread 1⁄2 cup to 1 cup of dough mixture onto the corn husk, depending on the size of the corn husk. The spread should cover about two thirds of the husk, away from the pointed end, making sure you leave some space on each side to fold. Gently fold one side of the corn husk to the other end and fold up the pointed end across. Lay each tamale fold-side down. There should be an open end to each tamale.
- Once the tamales are folded, fill the tamale steamer with water just below the fill line and place the steam tray on the rack. Carefully place each tamale standing up on the steam tray without overloading it and bring water to a simmer. Steam with the lid on for 90 minutes.
- Remove each tamale with tongs and let rest for a few minutes before serving it as a sweet side-dish.
I plan to make it a little closer to the holidays and I will report back with how they went.
I have made tamales before and unfortunately didn’t have a tamale steamer to use. I got around it by poking holes in a metal pie pan and inverting the pan. Honestly, it was a pain and I’m hoping I’ll be able to get a tamale steamer before the next go round, but it did work.
When I made tamales, I also purchased a masa spreader. It’s definitely not a requirement but it did seem to help get an even layer of masa on the corn husk.
Well this looks rather interesting. I’ve had sweet tamales before and didn’t like them but that was because they were made with raisins in them and I don’t like raisins. However, I love pumpkin and since I am not a tamale maker, I will tell my mom to make them for me. ha. Oh and my mom makes over 100 dozen tamales each holiday season and she has never used a tamale spreader. I actually had to Google it to see what it was. ha. She has always used the back of a spoon to spread the masa. I wonder if she even knows what a tamale spreader is. I’ll have to ask her.