There are pumpkin pies, and there are pumpkin pies , and then… there’s this: 40 chefs in the city of Changsha, China came together last weekend to bake up one of the biggest pumpkin pies the world has ever seen. Weighing 900 kg — roughly 1,900 pounds — and measuring four meters in diameter, it required an enormous steaming pan, eight burners working simultaneously, and two cranes to make — and guess what? There’s a video. That’s right: You can watch it come together in all its pumpkin-y, pie-shaped glory.
I’m not totally sure what the impetus behind the giant pie project was; none of the sources I’ve found adequately explain why anyone would want to make a pie this big. But you know what? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Pumpkin pie is awesome — that should be reason enough. In any event, it failed to set a new record, so if that was the goal, alas, it wasn’t achieved; the current holder of the Guinness World Record for Largest Pumpkin Pie hails from New Bremen, OH. On the day of its measurement — September 25, 2010 — it clocked in at a whopping 3,699 pounds with a diameter of six meters. On the other hand, the Changsha pie was reportedly donated to a local children’s center, so at least it got put to good use.
Scroll down to watch the whole video (DO IT. IT’S NUTS) — but if you don’t have the time for it, here’s how all those chefs did it in five pictures.
Step One: Gather Your Tools
Wowzers. Now that’s a steaming pan.
Step Two: Make the Filling
First, the chefs sliced and steamed huge amounts of pumpkin — although it’s possible that by “pumpkin,” we mean squash. Apparently the kinds of pumpkins we carve at Halloween don’t actually make good eating, so a lot of pumpkin pie filling is actually made of a squash not too dissimilar to butternut. Anyhoo, after all the slicing and steaming was completed, the chefs added flour, powdered sugar, dates, and raisins — a total of one ton of ingredients, according to Shanghaiist.
Step Three: Assemble Your Pie
The pie filling was so heavy it required two excavators to deposit it into the steaming pan.
Step Four: Bake It
Once the pie was assembled, they covered it up with a wooden lid and let it steam for 30 minutes. I would have expected it to need longer — whenever I make a regular-sized one, it usually needs at least 45 minutes in the oven for the center to set, but whatever. When it’s done, it’s done, right?
Step Five: Pie!
It’s magnificent, is it not?
Perhaps most astonishing, though, is this: The pie isn’t the only 1,900-pound pumpkin creation to have made waves on the Internet this season. This year’s winner of the All New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off, which was carried off at the Topsfield Fair in Topsfield, MA at the beginning of October, also weighed in at 1,900 pounds. It netted the man who grew it, Hiram Watson, a prize of $5,000 — and I’m sure that gourd is worth every penny.
Watch the pie-making in action below:
Images: mackenziephoto/Flickr; China View/YouTube (5)
