It's Fall again and you know what that means - it's Freeze Dried Pumpkin Pie Treats Season! 
If this is your first time making freeze dried pie bites then you're in for a real treat! If you've made them in the past, but found them to be too hard, then perhaps you can try again this year using our helpful tips and tricks.
This year's Experiment Batches include Recipes #8 and #9!
Last year we bought several Pumpkin Pies from Sam's Club, and blended them up (crust and all) to make Freeze Dried Pie Bites.
They were a huge hit with our Family and Friends! Here are some before and after FD photos.
Some people find FD Pie Bites to be too hard, and we have learned that it's helpful to dilute the blended pie to thin the mixture. A less dense mixture also helps to make the pieces easier to bite into and to chew once freeze dried. 
We like to use our Breville Food Processor to mix up our various pie bites batches.
Last year we made Experiment Batches #5, #6, and #7 using cinnamon applesauce, or toasted pecans, or no-bake plain cheesecake filling. The year before that we made Experiment Batches #1, #2, #3, and #4 using varying amounts of water, or milk, or both to see what worked well and what didn't. You can find those links at the bottom of this post.
This year, we took things a step further and did additional Experiment Batches:
Experiment Batch #8 was pumpkin pie mixed with chocolate fudge pudding.
Experiment Batch #9 was pumpkin pie mixed with vanilla ice cream.
We also did a batch of our favorite combo with pumpkin pie mixed with cinnamon applesauce.
We like to use silicone food molds to create fun shapes when making our freeze dried pumpkin pie treats. Here are our sets of Fall-themed food molds with various shaped pumpkins, leaves, and acorns along with our favorite FD Tools and Accessories.
FD Tips & Tricks: You can cut your silicone foods molds into smaller pieces to make them easier to fit onto trays for pre-freezing. 
This also makes them easier to handle and to unmold the frozen pieces. Similar shapes can be nested together to save space in storage, similar to stacking silicone muffin cups.
Photo Below shows the Set of Chef Squeeze Bottles we bought just for filling food molds - it has a narrow tip for the thinner mixtures and a wider tip for the thicker mixtures.
Using these tips makes it so much easier to reach into all of the corners and to distribute the mixtures into all of the various shapes! These squeeze bottles come in a set of two or a set of five if you need to make larger batches at a time.
The first quarter of the pumpkin pie was cut into pieces so they could be loaded into the food processor. Once the pieces of pie were loaded in, the chocolate fudge pudding and water were added. It only took about 30 seconds to blend into a nice and smooth pie mixture. The consistency should be like a thick oatmeal. This makes it easier to pipe into food molds to create fun shapes. Diluting the mixture also makes the pie treats less dense and easier to bite into later once freeze dried.
Piping the pie mixtures into food molds is much easier and faster than trying to spoon it in, especially when using the mini food molds or needing to fill in corners or tight spots.
Once the food molds were filled they were moved downstairs to pre-freeze in our regular freezer while the other batches were being worked on.
RECIPE For Experiment Batch #8
1/4 (12 oz) of a 3 pound Pumpkin Pie (from Sam's Club) + 1/2 Cup Chocolate Fudge Pudding + 1 Cup Filtered or Distilled Water (tastes better than tap water).
RECIPE For Experiment Batch #9
1/4 (12 oz) of a 3 pound Pumpkin Pie (from Sam's Club) + 1/2 Cup Vanilla Bean Ice Cream + 1 Cup Filtered or Distilled Water (tastes better than tap water).
You can fill multiple bottles with pie mixture or just use one at a time. I stored the extra pie mixture in the fridge while I worked on filling this set of food molds.
Prevent Sticking With Silicone Mats, Sheets, Parchment:
Silicone mats are reusable, easy to wash and to store, and come in various sizes to fit your trays. Here's our link if you need some for your trays.
Once pre-frozen, the pie pieces can be gently popped out of the molds. 
You can also buy Pre-Cut Parchment Paper or even use Silicone Mesh Sheets to prevent sticking. These are the same type that can be used in Food Dehydrators. A Roll of Silicone Mesh can be cut to the sizes you need (and are also handy for covering Herbs on trays).
Here is the tray about to be loaded into the freeze dryer. 
Depending on the capacity limits of your model freeze dryer you can add a second layer of pie bites using a piece of parchment paper or silicone mesh to keep them from sticking together. For this batch I chose to just do a single layer of pie bites per tray.
Do I Use Default Or Custom Settings?
When we FD food items like dairy products, fresh herbs, fruits / citrus , we like to use a lower dry temp of 95F. We find it keeps the colors more vibrant, especially when FDing herbs or fruits. Using a lower dry temp is also important if you want to preserve the probiotics / live cultures / enzymes in foods like kefir, yogurt, milk, breast milk, sourdough starter, kombucha scobies, etc.
UPDATES COMING SOON!
We hope that you found this post to be Interesting, Informative, and Inspires you to freeze dry some Pumpkin Pie Bites of your own very soon!
Here's our link to last year's FD Pumpkin Pie Experiment Batches
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