Vegan pecan pie crust and pumpkin pie

Vegan pecan pie crust and pumpkin pie

This Thanksgiving we celebrated at my brother's, which meant all I had to bring was the pumpkin pie, stuffing, and corn bread - hardly anything! All that spare time inevitably led to some experimentation with the pie. Last year I wasn't totally happy with the texture of the filling (this year's was awesome), but the real problem was the bland and uninspiring crust.

In contrast, this year's pie crust is easy to assemble and is packed with nutty flavour! I also love the pumpkin-pecan combination (have you see my pumpkin-pecan cinnamon roll recipe?), so this crust was pretty much destined to be a hit!

It's actually a twist on my almond mince pie recipe from last Christmas, which will be coming soon...I love this season!

This crust was great with pumpkin, and I have a link to the filling recipe from Oh She Glows below, along with my alterations, but it's too good to wait till next Thanksgiving...I think I'll try it again with apples soon!

There is also a gluten free variation which I've noted, which came out very nicely too, and was quite caramel-y. 

Vegan pecan pie crust 

Total time: 2 hours (less if GF)

Serves: makes 1 large pie crust or 24 muffin tin tarts

Ingredients:

200g (1 3/4 cup) flour [sub 150g (1 1/4 cup) oat and 50g (1/2 cup) chickpea flour, if GF]

175g (approx 2 cups) ground pecans

175g (3/4 cup) sugar

75g (8 tbsp) vegetable suet

1 tbsp coconut oil 

1-3 tbsp almond milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract 

1/2 tsp Apple cider vinegar

Rub the oil and suet into the flour until it resembles oatmeal, then add all the remaining ingredients except the almond milk and continue to mix. Add as much milk as is necessary to form a dough ball. Then, place in a plastic bag and put in the fridge for an hour (if you are making the gluten free version, you can skip this step).

After it has rested for an hour, preheat your oven to 180C/375F, and press the pie crust into your greased/lined pie dish.  Prebake the crust for 7 minutes before adding the filling.

For the filling:

I used the classic pumpkin pie recipe from Oh She Glows with the following alterations -

Double the sugar (yes, really)

1 tsp molasses

1 extra tsp cinnamon and no cloves

Pinch of salt

I really recommend doing a taste test of the filling before pouring it onto your crust - the pie will be eaten cold, and the pumpkin is already cooked, so the flavour doesn't change as much as you might expect.