Our Favorite Pumpkin Pie - Dairy Free or Dairy Full
Bake together. Eat together.
The only pumpkin pie recipe you’ll ever need.
It’s all about the molasses. No, this deep-colored, complex-flavored pumpkin custard isn’t overcooked. The ‘secret’ ingredients are dark brown sugar and, especially important, molasses.
I know almost on sight how a pumpkin pie will taste. If it’s pale, like so many pies, it’ll be fine but not amazing. Dark brown sugar, molasses and lots of spices give this pie a complex sweetness and flavor that I like better than pies made with refined sugar or sweetened condensed milk.
This is actually a recipe that became my mom’s contribution to Thanksgiving each year. I did a little crowd-sourcing research with family, and learned that my grandma found the inspiration for this recipe in a 1942 Spry cookbook. (Spry is a long-gone brand of shortening.) Like most recipes they used, my grandma and mom made additions or changes to the original.
Fun fact: before new recipes were mostly on the internet or in coffee table-worthy cookbooks, home cooks clipped recipes from the local newspaper or purchased little pamphlets printed by product manufacturers, like Spry.
Taste Test Kitchen
My mom loved to make the pie into a deep dish version using a little extra milk. I usually make the pie this way too, which became extra challenging when we converted to dairy free. There wasn’t any dairy free or lactose free evaporated milk available.
To adapt to lactose intolerance and dairy allergy, I’ve made the pie with coconut milk. For the deep dish pie version, I have to bake it longer even when adding one more egg.
Great news this year, I found two new-to-us products – a lactose free evaporated milk and an evaporated coconut milk. We also tried it with coconut cream, hoping the higher fat content would be similar to the lower water content of regular evaporated milk. It was really rich and less easy to digest, although delicious.
Yes, we’ve had a lot of pumpkin pie in the last month. We really suffered (wink, wink).
Our favorite option out of the two new products we tried is evaporated coconut milk. We’ve become so unused to the taste of milk that the lactose free evaporated milk tasted sour to us. The texture was great, though. Our second favorite choice is canned coconut milk (not cream).
Whichever way you make it, we hope you enjoy this pumpkin pie as much as our family does.
~ Lee
Our Favorite Pumpkin Pie - Dairy Free, Lactose Free or Full Dairy
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups pumpkin, canned or fresh baked and pureed
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon ginger
- 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably fresh-grated
- 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon clove
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 3 large eggs, slightly beaten - additional 1 egg for deep dish
- 1 cup coconut milk (or evaporated milk) - additional 1/3 to 1/2 cup for deep dish
- Unbaked or pre-baked (blind baked) pie shell for 9" pie or 9" deep dish pie
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425º (400º for a Pyrex or glass dish).
- Prepare the pie crust for a 9" pie or 9" deep dish pie. Use the leftover scraps: re-roll and cut out leaf shapes to top the pie after it cools.
- Place pumpkin, sugar, salt and spices in a large bowl and whisk by hand. Use more or less space according to taste, although it's best to use the larger amounts if making the deep dish version.
- Add molasses, eggs and 1 cup milk. If making the deep dish version, measure a heaping tablespoon of the molasses, and add the extra milk and egg.
- Whisk until smooth and free of lumps. Pour the custard into the pie shell and place on a rimmed baking sheet.
- Bake in the lower third of the oven for 40-45 minutes, 60-75 minutes for deep dish, until set. You may need to cover the crust with foil or a pie shield halfway through the baking. Test to see if the pie is done by inserting a knife halfway between the rim and middle - knife should come out clean. The outer edges may have some cracks and only the very middle (2" diameter center) should jiggle.
- Remove to a rack and let cool uncovered for several hours or overnight.
- When cooled, place leaf cutouts in decorative pattern. Serve with whipped cream or nondairy topping. After serving, refrigerate unused portions.
Notes:
Don't overcook. If so, moisture make collect on the surface as the pie cools. For the same reason, cool the pie uncovered.
Coconut milk filling may seem softer when set than when dairy milk. It still has great texture and taste.
Bake the pumpkin pie long enough to set up but not too long or it will ‘weep’ - that means the eggs in the custard got overheated and broke down. Who knew.
