Classic Pumpkin Pie with Salted Maple Whipped Cream
Birthday dinner for a friend: beef wellington, french onion mac n' cheese, pumpkin pie. featured in this episode: my friend who doesn't eat vegetables LOL
Oct 31, 2025
October 1st is my friend Matt’s birthday. Last year, we celebrated by going out to dinner at Quality Meats. I brought a funfetti cake. I think you know by now how that night ended. As we were leaving the restaurant, we all laughed to each other and aligned that the restaurant ate half of Matt’s birthday cake. Oh well, toss it to Matt’s bad luck. I guess the next day I was feeling a little cheeky and ended up posting what would become my most viral TikTok ever. It was a video style I almost never post: centered on story-telling & drama without any recipe or cooking involved. I didn’t really know how it would be received. I honestly thought it wouldn’t “hit the algorithm” and the video would end up barely reaching 10k views. A swing and miss but at least I tried.
What ended up happening was quite a bit different. Within an hour, I noticed really emphatic and genuinely perturbed people commenting on my TikTok absolutely roasting the restaurant. Someone connected the cake to Quality Meats (I didn’t name them in my video out of respect), and that comment got upvoted to top comment. I went to bed a little giddy, not entirely knowing what would happen the next day, but pretty confident I just hit a virality nerve on the internet. The next day the video received close to 10 million views. On a video that was almost 3 minutes long—so long Instagram wouldn’t even support me posting it at the time. People started to make TikToks about my TikTok, flaming the debate. Someone posted a 10-minute long YouTube video investigation. I got over a dozen media requests for interviews. The only one I ended up taking was the TODAY show because the reporter seemed vested in getting the whole story.
Matt found the whole thing hilarious. That TODAY show reporter actually told me something that I believe to be true. If this story was about any other food or dessert, nobody would care. But for birthday cakes, the internet will wage war.
So it’s a year from that moment. I was considering making the same birthday cake again. But I still feel like I need to give that cake a little air. Instead, I focused on Matt’s true obsession: meat.
Matt loves steak, actually all protein for that matter. And he hates vegetables so much my friends and I have a shared album entitled “Matthew not eating his veggies again :(”, wherein we post uneaten vegetables that Matt left abandoned on his dinner plate (it’s currently up to 17 photos, and we started over the summer). Other of Matt’s favorites include: French food, bougie sushi i.e. omakase, potatoes, pasta, and broccoli. He’s also allergic to coconut, if anyone is interested.
A lot of those favorites felt like supporting actors. I knew I had to focus on the steak. And I did promise my friends when I hit 500k Instagram followers that I would make them a beef Wellington. So that felt like the only main appropriate for the occasion. We’re lining up for Thanksgiving, so I thought I would make a few other autumnal things to round out the menu. A pumpkin pie with salted maple whipped cream (which Matt happens to love), and a bussin’ French onion mac n’ cheese (which everyone happens to love).
I aced the cook on this Wellington. This was the fourth one I’ve ever made. I highly suggest you use a oven probe; it removes all the guess-work. For perfect rare/medium-rare, aim for 115F and let the dish rest for 15 minutes out of the oven. That’ll ensure the juices don’t run too.
Happy birthday Matt,
Ryan
Hey! My name is Ryan Nordheimer. Welcome to my cooking and baking site. I’m a 25-year old home cook living in the East Village in New York City. Hopefully you enjoy my food through my own, tried-and-true recipes.
Ingredients (17)
Ingredients (17)
For the pie
For the whipped cream
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425°F.
Generously flour your counter. Roll out the pie dough (1) into a large, thin circle, about 14 or 15” in diameter.
Transfer into a deep dish (not standard) pie plate. Let the dough drape into the pie plate and then press into the dish.
Transfer to the fridge. Trim the dough so there’s about 1/2” overhang.
Fold the excess under itself and crimp the border.
Transfer to the fridge to chill for 15 minutes.
Then dock with a fork.
Crumble up 2 sheets of parchment. Press them into the pie dough into an “X” shape.
Fill up your pie plate with pie weights (I use a lot of uncooked rice).
Place the plate onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake the pie dough for 25 minutes, until the edges turn golden.
Remove the pie weights, reduce oven to 350F.
Continue to bake until the whole pie is golden, another 15 minutes.
Remove the pie from the oven.
In a large bowl, beat all the remaining pie ingredients with a rubber spatula (to prevent too many air bubbles).
Pour the filling to the pie crust.
Return the pie to the oven and bake for 45 minutes, until the pie when you jiggle the baking sheet just wobbles in the center.
Remove the pie to the fridge to cool completely. If it cracks, that’s totally fine because you’re covering with whipped cream anyway.
Beat all the whipped cream ingredients together in a large mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer until stiff peaks form.
Pile on the top of the pie. Drizzle with more maple syrup and flaky salt and serve.
