What are the holidays without pumpkin pie? As a vegan, it’s been a little tricky to find a good one. We purchased a vegan pumpkin pie last year, from a well known whole food store, and it was, well, absolutely terrible.
Since then I have come up with my own recipe which is so close in flavor to my mother’s traditional homemade pumpkin pie recipe, that I actually prefer the vegan one. It always seems like the best foods are homemade, doesn't it?
Getting Started
Bake 1 medium pumpkin in the oven. After it cools down completely, clean out the seed and remove the flesh from the skin/rind, and then cut into chunks. It should yield 3-4 cups of pumpkin.
Ingredients
3-4 cups cooked pumpkin
1/3 cup sucanat
2-5 tablespoons honey (we know some of you don’t consider honey a vegan product, so just substitute agave or something else that suites your fancy)
¾ teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon powdered ginger
1/8 teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon sea salt
Place pumpkin into food processor with S blade in place. Add the rest of the ingredients and puree all ingredients until fully incorporated and smooth.
Place pumpkin puree into a large bowl and fold in ½ recipe of cashew fluff. Use the remainder of the fluff as whipped topping. Eat as a pumpkin soufflé or pour into a prepared date nut crust for a more traditional vegan pumpkin pie dessert.
Fluff topping ingredients from “the Raw Gourmet” by Nomi Shannon
1 cup cashews soaked (minimum 1 hour)
4-6 pitted medjool dates soaked (1 hour)
If you use a smaller date then use more dates.
Place drained cashews in your blender or food processor (I use a vitamix). Add the water reserved from soaking the dates. Blend the nuts until fluffy like whipped cream. Add more purified water if necessary to get the right consistency. Continue blending while adding the soaked dates 1 at a time.
Add ½ teaspoon vanilla if desired.
Enjoy your almost raw, vegan pumpkin pie recipe!
