Here's What You Should Be Doing With Extra Pumpkin Pie Filling

One of the universal mysteries of pie baking is, why does there always seem to be too much filling for the pie shell? Leftover pie filling is a fact of life, though, and while we usually try to get rid of the evidence by eating it up on the spot, sometimes there's more than just a few spoonfuls left over. Luckily, if the pies you've been baking are of the pumpkin variety, pumpkin pie filling is pretty versatile stuff.

One of the easiest things to do with it, by general consensus of the internet, is to portion it out into individual ramekins (paper-lined muffin cups will also do) and bake it until it sets up. If you want to get fancy, you could sprinkle some sugar over the top and then melt this with a brûlée torch or by using a broiler. The second-easiest thing may be to do what I did — press refrigerated cookie dough into mini-muffin cups to make tiny tart shells. (I went with gingerbread dough bought at IKEA last Christmas, but sugar cookie dough would work just as well.) Put a dab of pumpkin pie filling into each one and bake the pumpkin tarts for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. As I'm a big fan of lily-gilding, I sprinkled chopped, glazed walnuts over each one and can highly recommend doing so.

Custard and tarts are just a few offshoots on the ol' pumpkin vine, as it were. There are plenty of other things you can do with pumpkin pie filling, starting with breakfast. If your pie filling is liquidy, you can dip slices of bread into it and fry them up to make pumpkin french toast. You can also stir leftover filling into a smoothie or overnight oats to add pumpkin pie flavor – there's no need to add either sweetener or the autumnally ubiquitous pumpkin pie spice since both of these are already in the mix.

Pumpkin pie filling can be mixed with warm milk and coffee for a DIY PSL or combined with vanilla ice cream for a copycat Wendy's pumpkin spice Frosty. If you layer it with gingersnap or graham cracker crumbs and whipped cream, you can make perfect pumpkin pie parfaits. Swap the crumbs for chunks of pound cake and the parfait glasses for a large (and preferably see-through) bowl so it can be a pumpkin pie trifle. Sprinkle the cake with rum or bourbon to transform it into a fall-flavored tipsy trifle.