http://www.care2.com/greenliving/world-go-vegan-week-make-vegan-pumpkin-pie.html
World Go Vegan Week: Make Vegan Pumpkin Pie!
The 4th annual World GO VEGAN Week is taking place this year from October 25 through 31. This week is a celebration of compassion and a time to take action for animals, the environment and everyone’s well-being. In Defense of Animals, the organizer of the celebration, encourages people to use this week to to educate their community about the vegan lifestyle as a compassionate, sustainable, and healthy way of eating and living.
So, how am I going to celebrate? I’m going to start by educating my community about the vegan lifestyle. How am I going to do that? Four words: raw vegan pumpkin pie. And then I’ll add another 11 words: the world’s most “mmmmm”-inducing raw vegan dessert known to humankind.
I want to start by saying that as much as I love raw vegan food (read my take on it here)–many desserts from the raw vegan clan leave me…craving milkshakes. They can be kind of nut-heavy, date-loaded, a little dry, sometimes clunky. This pie, on the other hand, is creamy, bright, and elegant. I am a pumpkin pie freak and this one does not disappoint, I promise. That said, I need to warn you of a few things. First, although it tastes exactly like pumpkin pie–there is no pumpkin in it! (Which is good because I’m not so sure I like the texture of raw pumpkin.) Second, it recommends the use of a dehydrator (but we can get around that, I’ll tell you how at the end of the recipe). Also, although the steps are very easy, like many raw recipes this crust requires plenty of advance planning to accommodate dehydrating times. If you are accustomed to making raw food, I know that didn’t scare you–to those of you to whom this may be new, don’t click away from this page! It’s easy and worth it. (You can also skip the crust and turn it into a much quicker raw vegan pumpkin pudding.)
So, here we go: Raw Vegan Pumpkin Pie
CRUST
2 1/4 cups pecans, soaked overnight and dehydrated for 24 hours
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon coconut oil
1 tablespoon date paste
1 pinch sea salt
1. Place prepared pecans in food processor; pulse into small crumbs. Mix pecans and all remaining ingredients together well by hand.
2. Press into plastic (or parchment) lined 9-inch tart pan to desired thickness. Dehydrate 48 hours.
3. Chill crust in freezer for 15-30 minutes before filling. If not using all of hte crsut mixture, store extra in a container in the freezer.
FILLING
1/2 cup cashews, soaked
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup agave (read about agave)
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons carrot juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 vanilla bean, scraped
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1. Blend all ingredients in Vita-Mix (or a basic heavy duty blender) until very smooth.
2. Fill tart crust and chill in freezer overnight. Remove pie from tart pan, cut into 12 even slices and serve, or wrap each slice in parchment and store in refrigerator.
The Dehydrator. When I first started considering a raw diet, all this talk of a dehydrator made me very nervous. I imagined some very high-tech piece of kitchen lab equipment that was probably very expensive, certainly complicated, and maybe even dangerous! Lo and behold–it’s a simple box with drying trays and a small fan and heater. I got one and use it all the time for a million things, even though I’m not exclusively raw. Anyway, you can live without it. If you are in a cooler climate, Matthew Kenney recommends using an oven at the lowest setting with its door propped open, or if oyu are in a warmer environ, he suggests laying your food in the sun. Again, you can also skip the drying of the crust and make the pie filling as a pudding.
Adapted from the great raw cookbook Everyday Raw (Gibbs Smith, 2008) by Matthew Kenney
And about that picture. It is an actual picture of the recipe, from the cookbook, but the recipe doesn’t explain the grid decoration (or how someone could possibly have such a steady hand with a pastry bag!). It looks to me like they reserved some of the filling mix, maybe mixed it with a little extra coconut oil (or maybe not) and piped it on.
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39 comments
add your comment »Vegan Pumpkin Pie???? This is not Pumpkin Pie!!!!! This whole thing is misleading ,cause this isn't even related to Pumpkin Pie!!!! No Pumpkin is involved in the making of this so called pie.What a crock.
Junk Pie might be more correct. It doesn't even sound like food let alone Pumpkin pie.
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Excuse me, but when did a vegan diet become a raw food diet? World go vegan week, and being vegan in general has nothing to do with raw food. Oreos are vegan, for gods sake! Vegan just means that you don't eat animal products.
Going vegan is not really that hard if you already follow a healthy diet. It's easy to substitute faux meat, eggs, cheese and milk into almost any recipe. Vegan desserts are easy to make, and everyone raves about how good they are. No one knows they are vegan, unless you tell them.
Raw food diets are extremely difficult to follow, though. Almost everything is excluded, and you basically have to always bring your own food. I'm sorry, but raw food people are freaky.
It is this presumptuous and incorrect association between raw food and veganism that turns most people off to becoming vegan. You can't even have something as simple and fulfilling as a peanut butter sandwich, pasta or a cookie if you are a raw foodie. You can if you are vegan.
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I read the instructions. I am not a dummy! Don't take it so personally. I think it's a stupid dish.
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Hi,
Wonderful Article, can't wait to try these recipes, Thanks so much!
mineralstoffe
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FLORA: I went to the cooks.com website, but could not find the eggless pumpkin pie..do you remember which number it was, there were so many. Thanks!!
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No pumpkin? I will stick with regular pumkin pie. This recipe doesn't appeal to me. Half of the ingredients aren't available either where I live.
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I normally don't comment on anything but come'on! I am a holistic nutritionist and a chef. I cannot cook vegan chocolate chip cookies and then say that I don't have chocolate chips in them. It is not a chocolate chip cookie then. You can't have pumpkin pie without pumpkin. Now, I have nothing against the recipe, just the name. Perhaps calling it an "Autumn Harvest Vegan Pie" or an "Autumn Harvest Pie" would work better and sound nicer. As a chef, I cannot sell something by a descriptive and then not follow through. When I make sugar free chocolate chip cookies that rise too much, or a bit dry and larger than normal, that description doesn't fit a cookie. So, I call them biscuits or scones. I suggest changing the name of the recipe and pie. Or else, it can even bring a false value to it. For instance, I could make a Vegan Pumkin Pie with eggs, butter, and milk. It technically wouldn't be Vegan, but then again your pie technically isn't a pumpkin pie. Also, it is not that healthy judging by the amount of fats in the pie. sure they may be good fats, but too many fats in one day can be unsettling to your body, as well as the sugars in the maple syrup. If I am not mistaken, there is nothing wrong with pumkin, you could make an awesome Vegan pumpkin pie, using vegetable shortening and coconut oil instead of the butter in the crust and it would still work awesomely.
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Btw ... thanks for the additional dehydrator comments, Melissa. I have a dehydrator but the trays are round, shallow and have a hole in the middle ... I'm not sure I could put a tart pan on one. Glad to know there's a workable alternative.
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I'm astonished by these comments. As Sylvia Wulf wondered, did anyone actually *read* the introduction? The author clearly explains the lack of pumpkin, and also the fact that this is a RAW vegan recipe. Yes, absolutely, you could bake one with egg replacement and dairy-free ingredients, but it would no longer be a raw foods recipe. Please read the introduction. If you have no desire to try a raw dessert, this recipe is not for you. There are plenty of great BAKED vegan pumpkin pie recipes out there if that's what you're looking for.
@Christopher Fowler:
1) Please read the introduction
2) Please look up the meaning of the word "vegan" before commenting on any other vegan-related articles. Traditional pumpkin pie is not vegan. If you knew what vegan meant, you would know that.
3) Darn near everybody's family has been making pies and pumpkin pies for generations. It doesn't make you an authority on pie. "Mock apple pie" has no apple in it. Hence the "mock". This is a mock pumpkin pie. The author figured folks were smart enough to figure that out without needing to actually use the word "mock." Fair guess she won't make that mistake again.
4) The author has not offended pie makers, home bakers, or anyone else for that matter. Your juvenile "DUH!!!", on the other hand, is as offensive as when my five-year-old says it. Wait ... are you my five-year-old? He also doesn't read so well and doesn't know what vegan means. Wow, that's a coincidence.
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jon....well said. i just was laughing about all the steps it takes when i can jist make a real one w/ egg substitute, if it had said "vegan nut cake" or something i would not have been so ???? when i saw all the receipe. lots of people would like that title...VNC.
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