Over Christmas Jennifer made two pumpkin pies, one regular and one paleo. Here’s a photo of the paleo pie, which is the regular pie minus the sugar and the crust:
The key to a good pumpkin pie is to start with real pie pumpkins. Cut the pumpkin in half, scrape out the seeds, and bake it, cut-side down in a bit of water, for around 45 minutes.
Jennifer bakes a great crust from a recipe in Baking With Julia.
Then, follow this recipe that we got from Jennifer’s mom:
Mix:
* 1.5 cups pumpkin
* 3 eggs
* 0.5 cup sugar
* 1.25 teaspoon cinnamon
* 0.5 teaspoon salt
* 0.5 teaspoon ginger
* 0.5 teaspoon nutmeg
* 0.25 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1.66 cups heavy cream
(Note: The original recipe calls for a full cup of sugar, but the pie is plenty sweet with only half of a cup. Obviously for the paleo pie skip the sugar entirely.)
Pour into a 9 inch, unbaked pie shell, or, for the paleo pie, into a pie dish.
Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 30 to 35 minutes, until a poker (toothpick or cake tester) comes out clean. (Note: The pie usually puffs up during baking and then settles back down during cooling.)
Cool. Top with whipped cream. (We use pure cream whipped with vanilla, no sugar.) The original recipe calls for pecan topping, but we’ve never eaten it that way.
We really like both versions of this pie. We thought that, in the future, we’ll try increasing the spice load for the paleo pie, but that’s not necessary for a tasty pie.