Pumpkin Pie
Thanksgiving is upon us, a time to be thankful for all the gifts in our life: family, friends, a warm home and peak brain performance. Holidays bring out joy, social gatherings, and many sugar and gluten filled treats that taste delightful but can leave you with brain fog and confusion for days. Martha Lindsay, MS, CNE our nutritionist has shared a recipe that will allows you to enjoy a classic Thanksgiving pumpkin pie with none of the brain fog and confusion that the other sugar-laden treats provide.
For more brain-healthy, low-sugar desserts, check out our Brain Healthy Almond Joy Cups or our Easy Chocolate Bark. These desserts are made to have no refined sweeteners to safeguard your health. To better understand the problems with refined sweeteners click here.
Ingredients
Pumpkin pie filling
- 15 oz pureed pumpkin canned or roasted
- 1/4 cup honey
- 6 pitted dates
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ginger
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp cloves
- pinch sea salt
Pie crust
- 1 cup coconut flour, sifted
- 1 cup almond flour, sifted
- 1/2 cup tapioca starch
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 cup coconut oil or lard
- 1/4 cup icy cold water
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp white vinegar
Instructions
To make pie crust
- Preheat oven to 325.
- In a large bowl, whisk flours, tapioca starch and salt. Add coconut oil or lard and, using your fingers, gently mix and rub it in until the mixture resembles fine crumbs with a few larger pieces.
- In a small bowl, whisk water, vinegar and eggs together. Pour over dry ingredients, stirring briskly with your fingers until some kind of a ragged dough starts to form.
- Turn onto a working surface and gently press into a ball.
- Cut into 2 halves and, while being careful not to overwork the dough, form each half into a disc. Wrap in plastic film and refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes (If making in advance, refrigerate the dough for up to 3 days.)
- Take pastry out of the fridge at least 30 minutes prior to rolling. When the dough is at room temperature it rolls better and does not crack so much.
- Roll out pastry between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Take care to flip it over from time to time and when you feel that the dough starts to adhere to the paper and not expand all that good, peel the paper off, scrape it clean with a plastic scraper if necessary and place it back over the dough.
- When disk is large enough to fit into your pie dish, slide it with the parchment paper onto a plate. Peel off top paper and place pie dish over the dough. Flip the whole thing upside down so the dough falls right into the pie dish. Peel off parchment paper, and fix inevitable cracks and breakage.
To make pumpkin pie filling
- Combine all pie ingredients in a blender and process until smooth.
- Pour into pie crust and cover edges with aluminum foil.
- Bake in middle of oven for 50 min to 1 hr or until knife inserted into center comes out clean.
