Parve Pumpkin Pie! (and bonus coconut whipped cream!)

So Em Bakes. Em bakes cookies, cakes, pies, bread, muffins, scones, biscuits, and you get the idea. I consider myself to be a pretty good improvisor when it comes to using alternative ingredients and such. But, I'll admit, I sometimes have trouble with making things vegan. It's a growing edge.

I don't usually go home for Thanksgiving these days. It's too expensive and too logistically complicated to fly cross-country for a few days. But I'm really fortunate to have friends and classmates hosting here in Philly, so I always end up with somewhere to go. This year, I offered to bring pies to my host. What I wasn't considering, when I made the offer, was Thanksgiving would be a meat meal (as opposed to a dairy meal), and while I could use eggs, I could not use milk or butter or any other dairy products. Oops.

I decided to make two pies-- one apple and one pumpkin (it is Thanksgiving, after all). For the apple, I more or less just subbed earth balance for butter in my normal recipe.  I think it'll be yummy. I think apple pie made with butter is probably yummier.  ;)  For the pumpkin pie, I suppose I could have just tried subbing earth balance for butter and soy milk for cow's, but instead I thought it'd be fun to have a baking adventure, so I bought coconut oil.


Coconut oil is a thing. It's a thing I've never bought, because I've never quite known what to do with it. To be totally honest, I'm still not positive I know what to do with it, but I figured I'd grab a jar and play. I also decided to use almond milk, figuring that almond and coconut and pumpkin were likely to be a good combo.

For the crust, I found this recipe on Whole Foods and more-or-less followed it. For the filling, I looked at probably a dozen different vegan and non-vegan pumpkin pie recipes and improvised.


Ingredients- crust

• 3 oz solid (not liquid!) coconut oil
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp sugar
• 8 TBS ice water

Procedure- crust

• Stir the flour, salt, cinnamon, and sugar together
• Use two knives to cut the coconut oil into the flour and salt mix. This is tricky. The coconut oil did not want to be cut into the dry mix. Butter is usually cooperative, but the oil wasn't. I got it eventually, but it was still lumpier than a usual crust.
• Stir the ice water into the mix a couple tablespoons at a time until the dough just barely comes together. (My grandma always said to add it until you thought you needed a little more and then stop.)
• 
• Pour the dough out of the counter, gather it up, and press into a flattish disc. Wrap in plastic and stick in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight. 

Ingredients- filling

• 1 can pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. white sugar
• 1 TBS maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 TBS flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

Procedure- filling/baking

• Pre-heat the oven to 375°F.
• Whisk all of the filling ingredients together in a large bowl. Taste for spice and sweetness and add more if you like. 
• Remove the crust from the fridge, roll out, and place into a pie tin. If the crust doesn't fully cooperate, just do your best! Use scraps to fill in any bits of the edge that aren't covered. Make a nice border if you like (and have enough extra crust).
• Pour the filling into the crust.
• Bake for 10 minutes, then turn down to 350°F and bake for about 50 minutes, or until the center of the pie is firm when lightly giggled. If you're lucky, your pie won't crack. Or maybe you'll be like me and it will. Either way, it should be yummy.

Ingredients- whipped cream

• 1 can coconut cream
• 1 TBS maple syrup
• 1-3 TBS sugar (used as a stabilizer and to sweeten to taste) 
• 1 TBS ginger syrup (optional)

Procedure- whipped cream

• chill the coconut milk overnight in the fridge
• 
• pour the solid part of the can into a large chilled bowl, reserving any liquid for something else yummy
• 
• use a hand mixer or a bunch of elbow grease to whip til fluffy. Add maple syrup and ginger syrup and whip some more. 
• 
• put whipped cream on pumpkin pie.  Induce food coma. 

Happy Thanksgiving! (Stuffing recipe to follow!)