vegan pumpkin pie

thanksgiving alert!

pumpkin pie is my favorite so this year i decided i need to make a vegan one for thanksgiving. with two weeks until the big day and not wanting to risk a soupy failure i had to start experimenting and fast. i started out by reading several recipes to get an idea of how to approach it. there are many that call for agar as the thickening agent but i find agar to be fussy plus it is super expensive and thus not what i wanted to play around with. i opted for the tofu route and asked my mom for her recipe because, ideally, i wanted it to taste just like hers.

shawn and kate came over for dinner and served as additional tasters. the consensus? taste was spot on! it was slightly looser than i had hoped, however it still cut into nice slices without falling apart. i put the uneaten part in the fridge and by the next evening it had firmed up a bit more.

so my thanksgiving plan? bake this pie the day before, refrigerate, then bring to room temperature before serving.

vegan pumpkin pie
(makes one 9-inch pie)
ingredients:
2 cups canned pumpkin
1/2 cup silken tofu
1 2/3 cups non-dairy milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves

1 pie crust, unbaked

preheat oven to 350 and have your pie crust in the pie plate and ready to go.

in a large bowl, whisk the cornstarch into the milk until dissolved. add spices and sugar and whisk until combined. add tofu and pumpkin and blend until smooth (i whisked and then used an immersion blender, but you could also just do everything in a blender to begin with)

pour into pie crust and bake for about an hour, until the center looks firm. let cool and refrigerate overnight for optimum firmness.

-d