Brûléed Bourbon Maple Pumpkin Pie with Chocolate Almond Flour Crust

Being GF on thanksgiving isn’t that much of a pain, but there are some things you really want to be able to eat, like pumpkin pie – so why not offer to make it? And to make sure they’ll say yes, why not put bourbon in it? Foolproof.

I found this ridiculous recipe from Bon Appetit that is actually pretty incredible because it’s super fancy, but also doesn’t really mess with a classic – like it still tastes like pumpkin pie, just a really good and fancy pumpkin pie.

The recipe calls for a chocolate pie crust, and I actually couldn’t find any paleo chocolate pie crust recipes, so I just modified Elena’s Pantry‘s recipe, as follows:

Put the following in a food processor and pulse until it forms a ball:
– 2+c almond flour (I was going to be making the pie in a cake pan because that was the only thing I could find with a lid, so I wanted to make extra in case and so ended up adding a little extra to all the ingredients)
– 1/2c cocoa powder (my addition)
– 1 egg +some egg white left over from making Hollandaise sauce
– Salt
– 2+tbsp coconut oil (this didn’t combine well in the food processor because I didn’t melt it first, but it turned out ok)

– Smush the dough into the cake/pie tin

The Bon Appetit recipe says to cook the pie crust first, but since I wasn’t using their crust recipe I wasn’t sure about this so I didn’t do it…

The Filling (again I did a little extra of everything because I wasn’t sure how much it would make. It made more than enough, so we got to have a little mini pie for thanksgiving breakfast before going to my cousins!)

Mix together:
– 3 eggs (and a little leftover egg white)
– 15+oz pumpkin
– 1/4+c sour cream
– 2+tbsp bourbon
– 1+tsp cinnamon
– 1/2+tsp salt
– 1/4+tsp nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cloves (although they didn’t call for cloves, they said mace which I’m not super familiar with but decided it was probably a substitute for cloves in the first place)

On the stove, heat:
– 3/4+c maple syrup
– 1+tsp vanilla
until boiling and then reduce and simmer stirring occasionally for a few minutes. They say it will thicken a little by ~minute 3, but I let mine go for 6 minutes and it never did. I think it was fine.

Gradually add in, stirring until smooth:
– 1c half and half (and actually they said cream which I’m sure would be much better, but I had half and half in my fridge so decided to use it. I had a freak out afterwards wondering if it would be too watery, but I found other pumpkin pie recipes online that called for half and half so I decided it would be ok. And it was – thank goodness!!)

– Gradually add the maple cream to the pumpkin mixture

– Bake at 350*f for a while – they said 50-60 minutes, but maybe because mine was in a cake pan or because of the half and half or my oven or whatever, mine took more like 70-80+ (didn’t really keep track – just kept adding on 5min). The key, I guess, is for the sides to be set and the middle to still be a little jiggly

– Let it cool

– Just before serving, sprinkle the top with a couple tablespoons of sugar and torch it! Don’t add too much sugar because it is harder to brûlée, like I think I used too much, but oh well. So so cool – definitely a first for me, but will not be the last.