Pumpkin Pie
Serves 8

Use 1 recipe Spelt Shortcrust Pastry Dough or 1/2 Traditional Pastry recipe rolled in
a 9” pie shell, chilled.

Gluten-Free Option: The Whole Bean/Brown Rice pastry can be used as well.

** Pumpkin puree: Look for small cooking “pie pumpkins” which are a special variety different
from Halloween pumpkins and have a texture similar to a Hubbard squash. You can also use a
Hubbard squash or my favorite, a 50/50 combination of pie pumpkin and Hubbard squash.

To cook the pumpkin: Cut the pumpkin in half and place both halves into a
rectangular baking dish. Fill the baking dish with water about 1/3” deep. Cover the
pumpkins with either aluminum foil or a plate wider in diameter than the pumpkin.
Bake for about one hour or until the insides are very soft. Remove from the oven
and let cool. Scoop out the seeds. These can be rinsed off, sprinkled lightly with sea
salt and roasted for a nice snack. Once the seeds have been removed, scoop out the
pumpkin. Place two cups cooked pumpkin in a food processor or blender and puree.
If the pumpkin is a little dry, you may want to add a little of the liquid from the pie
recipe. One small pie pumpkin may not yield two cups of puree so two pumpkins
will probably be required to make a pie. Any excess can be frozen and used for soup
or muffins.

1 14 oz (398 ml) pure canned organic pumpkin or
2 cups pumpkin puree**
2 eggs
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 1/4 cups sucanat or 1 1/4 cup maple syrup or mix 50/50
1 egg white
(If using organic sugar add 1 tsp molasses or organic yellow sugar)
3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mace or ginger
1 tsp sea salt

Mix all the ingredients together and whisk until smooth. Brush the inside of the pie shell
with egg white. Pour pumpkin filling into the pie shell. Bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes
and then lower the temperature to 350 degrees F and bake for another 30 minutes.
Let cool and serve while still slightly warm. Serve with whipped cream or whipped
coconut milk


Spelt Shortcrust Pastry Dough

Makes two 9 inch pie crusts or one double crust
10–12 regular tarts or 18 mini-tarts or two 10 inch flan shells

Shortcrust pastry is a very rich pastry and the one I prefer to use for most pies. However,
because this is a whole grain recipe, it is a little more fragile and crumbles more
easily when trying to move the rolled pastry into a pie plate. Adding a little extra
water can help, but be cautious because water can also make pastry tougher. I use the
recipe as is because appearance is less important to me than taste and texture.

6 oz (3/4 cup) cold butter, or
coconut oil, cut into cubes
2 tbsp coconut oil*
2 1/2 cups spelt flour
1/8 tsp sea salt
1 egg yolk
2–3 tbsp water

Place butter, coconut oil, spelt flour and salt into a food processor and process until mixture
resembles fine crumbs. Do not over process to the point where the mixture becomes
a ball. Transfer to a bowl and add egg yolk and water. Mix together gently, using a pressing,
squeezing motion. Do not knead or the dough will become tough. When re-rolling
dough, mix dough already rolled with fresh dough in a 50/50 ratio.

Whole Bean/Brown Rice Pastry

Gluten-free pastry has one advantage over its gluten counterpart: Because there is
no gluten, there is no need to worry about stretching the gluten, which can make
pastry tough. Although it is not a good idea to work it too much, it is okay to
squeeze and knead it into a ball when first mixing—something I would never do
with a gluten-based pastry.

1 cup whole bean flour
2/3 cup brown rice flour
1 1/2 tsp sucanat
1/2 cup butter, chilled, cut into cubes
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp coconut oil
1 egg or choice of egg replacer*
2 tbsp milk (coconut, almond,
rice, or soy can also be used)

Place flours, sucanat, butter, coconut oil, salt and baking powder in a food processor
and process until the mixture is the consistency of bread crumbs. Transfer to a bowl.
Mix milk and egg together and add it to the flour mixture. Using clean hands, squish
mixture through the fingers until it can be formed into a ball. Cover and chill in the
refrigerator for 1 hour.

* 2 tsp chia, salba, or salvia hispanica with 2 tbsp water work best as an egg replacement.
It works so well, I think it may be better than using the egg.
Most of the pie filling recipes found in the Pies, Tarts, Cobblers and Crisps can be
easily made gluten-free by substituting 1/4 cup spelt flour with 1 tbsp whole bean flour,
1 tbsp tapioca and 1 tsp chia, salba or salvia hispanica mixed together. You many need
to use less than this for fruits that do not have a lot of juice.

This pastry recipe is quite versatile. Here are two more versions with different types
of substitutions. For the butter substitution, I like to use coconut oil and replace
a small portion of the coconut oil with coconut cream for extra flavor. For the egg
substitute, I tried one with egg replacer powder mixed with water and one with a
member of the chia family, ground and mixed with water. I found the ground chia,
salba or salvia hispanica was the best as an egg replacement. I found replacing whole
bean flour with tigernuts flour resulted in a more pliable pastry–almost too pliable.
The good news is that all of them worked very nicely, giving a nice flaky pastry.