It’s that time of year again. Time to dig out the baking supplies and make something yummy.
Pumpkin pie spice is the scent that really brings the autumn and winter holidays home for me, so I figured that I would start with something simple. Pumpkin pie!
I am between pie plates at the moment, and since I am the only one in the house who actually likes pumpkin pie, I decided to make my life easier and go with single serving pies made in a muffin tin.
Luckily, if you make your pumpkin pie from scratch, then chances are that it is already gluten-free. The only problem would be the pie crust.
While I was searching online for a g-free pie crust recipe, I stumbled upon Karina’s Kitchen – and her answer was simple. Leave the crust out.
If you looking for something that is vegan as well as gluten free, I would recommend trying out her pumpkin pie recipe. It looks very tasty.
The recipe I ended up using was partly from the back of the can of pumpkin and partly improvised – because that’s what I do.
The ingredients I used were:
- 1 397g (14 oz) can organic pumpkin – I say organic because it was the only can I could find that just had ‘pumpkin’ listed in the ingredients.
- 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice*(pie spice mix to follow)
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 eggs, slightly beaten
- 2/3 cup of Liberte coconut yogurt
- 5 TBSP brown sugar
Spray your muffin tin liberally with cooking spray or just use plain veg oil and a paper towel to lube them up. I filled them right to the top and got 9 tarts. I think, however, if you only filled them about half to 3/4 of the way up, you might get the full 12.
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
Mix your pumpkin with the spices and salt, and then add the remaining ingredients. Mix until combined. An ordinary spoon will do you just as well as your hand/stand mixer in this case. So, when I was making it, I decided to save myself the extra clean up and went with the spoon option.
The recipe on the can called for a can of sweetened condensed milk. Because I didn’t have any of those on hand (I never do, I really ought to pick some up to keep in the pantry), I looked around for the next best thing. I thought that coconut milk would probably do pretty well (ala Karina’s recipe), but alas, I was out of that too.
I did, however, have a container of coconut yogurt that is on hold for my attempt at Karina’s Coconut Carrot Cake (it looks super yummy also – I’ll post when I try it to let you all know how it turned out). It’s not as sweet as sweetened condensed milk would be, and thus, the brown sugar was added.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin tin and bake at 425 for 8 – 10 minutes. Turn your oven down to 350 degrees and bake for 20 more minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cool for about 10 minutes in the tin and then up end onto a cooling rack and let cool completely. Once cool, you can add whipped cream, ice cream, more of that tasty coconut yogurt or just nom them plain.
I must admit that I nommed 3 of them for … ah, research purposes. Yeah, that’s it! As the only taste tester in my house at the moment, I have to say that I think they turned out pretty damned good 
Enjoy!
*Pumpkin Pie Spice Mix
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground allspice
