I have a serious love of pumpkin pie. I can remember being about eight, sitting on the sofa at the cottage with my dad, the morning after the big Thanksgiving meal, enjoying mom’s pumpkin pie and tea for breakfast. The way the smell of the rich spices wafts into your nose when you take a bite, the texture of the jiggly pumpkin custard against the flaky crust and the chill of the pie from being in the fridge over night all combine into this amazing food memory (not to mention the fall cottage scenery and time with my dad). When I went vegan two months ago I knew there would be certain things that I would need to “figure out”. Everyone just assumes it will be something like cheese or bacon – two things I honestly don’t miss at all, but the thought of Thanksgiving going by without pumpkin pie was unacceptable to me. Without pumpkin pie, this might as well be just another Monday for me. So, I scoured the internet and came across a couple of recipes I thought would work. I even modified a Martha Stewart pastry recipe and made a lovely, flaky vegan crust for my pumpkin tart. All in all, this has been a very successful Thanksgiving. R and I sat down to a beautiful spread last night (I made a turkey for my meat-eating-man of course, but everything else was 100% vegan) and I didn’t miss a thing… Thanks to my new and VERY yummy pumpkin tart recipe.

(Vegan) Pumpkin Tart

This could easily be made into a pie, with all the same measurements and cook time, just using a pie plate rather than a tart tin. I just love the thin crust and beautiful scalloped edges that result when baking a tart.

Makes 1 10” tart.

For the crust:

1 cup AP flour

¼ tsp salt

1 stick Earth Balance baking butter

2-4 tbs ice water

Sift the flour and the salt together. Cut in Earth Balance butter with a pastry blender until mixture is the texture of oatmeal. Turn out onto board and make a well. Add just enough ice water to bring the dough together, kneading gently with fingers so as to not melt the butter. Form into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap.

Let chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before rolling out on a floured board and transferring into the tart tin.

For the filling:

2 cups pureed pumpkin

¾ cup cane sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp nutmeg

1 cup plain rice milk (or soy or almond)

1 tbs vanilla

3 tbs cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, salt, cloves and nutmeg. Mix very well to start dissolving sugar.

Combine rice milk, vanilla and cornstarch and add to pumpkin mixture. Mix well.

Pour into unbaked and chilled tart shell, and bake for 60 minutes, until pastry is golden. The centre of the tart will be jiggly when you take it out of the oven, but will firm up as it cools.

Cool completely on a cooling rack and then refrigerate for several hours or overnight. This pie tastes best if left to sit overnight – all the spices will mellow and the flavors will be delicious!

Serve with vegan whipped topping or ice cream if you like. (If you like your tart/pie warm, it will warm nicely in a low oven while you serve and eat dinner.)

An original recipe, inspired by many, many recipes found in vegan blogs all over the internet. Pastry modified from Martha Stewart’s perfect pastry recipe.