Gluten-Free Pumpkin Coconut Cream Pie with Almond Crust (Recipe)

Posted on : November 21st, 2018

Last week I had a severe hankering for Pumpkin Pie! I just couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving anymore so I decided to give in to the craving. And I’m so glad I did—we enjoyed it so much at our house! Talk about comfort food!

But first, I had to appease the part of myself that’s attempting to lose weight. Not that this is diet food—not a bit! But the thing that makes me gain weight the most is wheat. Bread products, actually, and cookies, cake, and pie crust. Probably sweet pumpkin pie filling, too, but did I say this was a rational craving? The idea was to make the indulgence a lot healthier. So I made a delicious almond meal crust (protein!) and told myself how virtuous it was to eat a vegetable (pumpkin) for dessert.

I got all my ingredients together and then made a horrible discovery: someone drank all the milk and cream in the house without telling me! Was I really going to have to stop to run to the store and get some more? Hmmm. No way! I had a can of coconut cream in my cabinet. That is a rich thick and creamy version of coconut milk that is sinfully delicious. I just knew it would work great in the recipe and it did! And now I had an awesome dessert that was gluten-free and dairy-free (vegan), too.

I suggest making the crust first. It needs to bake for 10 minutes and then cool at least a little bit before you fill it with pie filling. Also, hopefully, you have almond meal on hand like I always do—you need 1 1/2 cups—but if not, it’s easy to remedy that. Put 1/2 cup or less at a time of Maisie Jane’s Roasted Almonds into an electric coffee grinder or food processor. Pulse a few times until you have a medium-fine textured consistency similar to cornmeal. Put the ground almonds into a container and do it again until you have 1 1/2 cups. Sift the almond meal to remove pieces that are too large and grind those a little longer. That’s it! The only thing you need to watch out for is not to grind so long that you wind up with almond butter!

I made my pie filling while the crust was baking and cooling so it didn’t feel like it took long at all. The hard part was waiting for the pie to bake and completely cool! The filling should be basically set when you take it out of the oven but it continues to firm up while cooling. Supposedly that should take a full hour but I didn’t wait that long. Which meant my slices fell apart when I put them on our plates. Luckily I had whipped cream on hand to cover my mistake and nobody noticed! In fact, we all had seconds and by then the pie was completely cool and came out of the pan perfectly. So you’ve been warned: be patient or don’t worry about appearances and dig in!

Pumpkin Coconut Cream Pie with Almond Crust

Almond Crust Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups almond meal
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 3 tablespoons coconut oil
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • 1 tablespoon water

Preparation:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the almond meal, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Stir well, breaking apart any lumps with your mixing spoon.
  3. In a small bowl, stir together the vanilla, oil, maple syrup and water. Add these ingredients to the almond meal mixture, and make a dough by mixing with a rubber spatula until completely combined.
  4. Turn the dough into a 9-inch glass pie pan. Flatten the dough slightly with the side of the rubber spatula to spread it towards the edges of the pan. Then, using your fingertips, continue pressing the dough out, making sure to press it all the way up the sides of the pan. Aim to have the dough pressed evenly, equally thick across the bottom and edges.
  5. Bake the crust for 10 minutes.
  6. Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool slightly before adding the filling.

Filling Ingredients

  • 15 ounces canned pumpkin purée (don’t use pumpkin pie filling!)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 3/4 cup coconut sugar or brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin spice
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 cup coconut cream

Final Preparation

  1. Keep the oven on, heated to 350ºF.
  2. Combine ingredients in order listed in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly. Pour into pie crust.
  3. Bake for one hour until center is completely set. Cool completely (approximately 1 hour).

Serve with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or stay dairy-free (and delicious) with lightly cooked apple slices.

Maisie Jane’s California Sunshine Products, Inc. was founded on strong beliefs and passion for offering unique, flavorful, top-quality, nut products. We strongly believe in earth-friendly practices that start on our family owned and operated orchards. We use Organic farming practices and continue in the process by using all-natural ingredients with no preservatives or GMOs. We believe in honest, friendly and helpful customer relations at all levels. We take pride in every task, every day, with every person.

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