This is not your grandma’s pumpkin pie.
Your grandma’s pumpkin pie, if made traditionally from the back of the pumpkin pie filling can and served with whipped topping, would have contained somewhere in the area of an insulin-spiking 45 grams of carbs per slice (1/8 pie being a serving). That is almost half of the most you should eat in an entire day. Ouch.
This recipe, which I’ve decided is 12 servings (a smaller slice of pie satisfies more quickly with healthy fats and without the insulin-triggered sugar cravings), comes out to around 17 grams of carbs per serving. That’s more like it!
As I’ve mentioned on my Facebook page and on last week’s School Lunch Boxes post, I’m currently reading the book Trick and Treat by Barry Groves. Right now I’m about halfway through and reading about how carbs trigger insulin and how people become insulin-resistant over time by eating too many carbs. Insulin resistance is basically cells telling the insulin to go to hell and store fat elsewhere, like on your butt. Groves goes into depth on how insulin interacts with cells in regards to storing energy within cells that can be used quickly, or energy stored as fat. Additionally, he says that the kind of fat and how much fat you eat along with the carbs also plays a part. It seems that if you eat good fat (saturated and monounsaturated) along with carbs, a sufficient amount of leptin is also released into your system, which helps the cells and insulin work together to prevent insulin-resistance.
In other words, carbs eaten in moderation (less than 100 grams per day) and eaten along with saturated and monounsaturated fats will go a long ways towards enabling your body’s built-in magic to optimally regulate its fat storage – without having to pay attention to calories.
In OTHER other words, this pumpkin pie with whipped cream could be the first step into getting you back into your skinny jeans.
Questions, comments, scathing rebuttals? The doctor is in.
Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream
Serves 12
INGREDIENTS
Crust
- 1/2 c. almonds
- 1 c. pecans
- 1/4 c. coconut flour
- 4 T. melted organic grass fed butter
- 1/2 t. cinnamon
- 1/2 t. sea salt
Filling
- 1 – 14oz can of plain, unsweetened pumpkin puree
- 2 t. ground cinnamon
- 1/4 t. nutmeg
- 1/4 t. ginger
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 c. sweetener of your choice (honey, maple syrup, and raw cane sugar would be my choices)
- 1 c. coconut cream
Whipped Cream
- 2 c. coconut cream
- 1 T. raw honey
- 1 t. vanilla extract
DIRECTIONS
- First thing you want to do is to get the stuff cooling for the whipped cream. Pour the coconut cream into the mixing bowl you’ll be using. Place the bowl and your mixer’s whip attachment into the freezer.
- Preheat oven to 350. Place the nuts in a food processor and process until the nuts are as fine as you’d like them to be in the crust. Pour into a small mixing bowl, add the butter and salt and mix into a thick dough. Using your hands, spread evenly into a pie pan. Don’t go as far up the sides as you would for a traditional pumpkin pie because this one doesn’t rise as far. Bake for 10 minutes.
- While the crust is in the oven, whisk all of the pie filling ingredients together. Pour into the crust that has been baked for 10 minutes, return to the oven and bake for and additional 45 minutes. Let cool at room temperature for at least an hour before serving.
- While the pie is baking, retrieve the mixing bowl, coconut cream, and beater out of the freezer. Add the vanilla and honey to the bowl, attach the beater to the mixer, and beat on high until it reaches the consistency you like. For me it took a little longer to whip up into peaks than dairy whipping cream.
Enjoy!
This sounds delicious, and I love the real food ingredients! That book sounds interesting – I’ll have to check it out.
If you do, I’d love to discuss it with you. The author pretty much cans every “healthy” food rule we’ve ever been told.
Coconut cream? Haven’t tried. Does it taste more like coconut or more like cream?? And canned pumpkin. Is it just as good as baking your own? Obviously easier. It looks and sounds just yummy!!!
Richard said it tasted a little like coconut – AFTER I told him what it was. I think it’s unidentifiable as anything different than regular whipped cream if you didn’t know. Same melts-on-your-tongue mouthfeel, etc. Canned pumpkin has a superior flavor and texture to fresh, imho, but the bpa’s released from the lining of the can during the canning process is a drawback. I wish I could find glass jars of pumpkin puree but so far no luck. For the few times a year that I use it, the tradeoff and texture/taste/convenience of using canned is worth it to me, over fresh.
Drooooool….looks awesome!
It IS pretty awesome. It’s the right texture and mouthfeel for what you’re expecting with pumpkin pie. Along with the whipped coconut cream, which is indistinguishable from whipped dairy cream, it’s a beautiful substitution using real foods. It also has more saturated fats from the coconut cream, which gives our cells the required medium-chain fatty acids to be immediately used for energy and cell repair/building. Good stuff.
I cannot wait to give this a try! It looks amazing!!
The kids keep asking me to make it again. I must have done it right!
Heavenly indulgence, surely must be good for you? I’m going to try this recipe on the beeks this winter!
It is quite good for you, yes indeed. I would use a bit more sweetener next time, and a dash of salt in the crust. I hope you like it!
I shall let you know!
This looks delish! The pie is similar to my much-revised version, but I have never tried the topping so I look forward to that. I long ago substituted local honey for sugar in all of my fruit pies, using about half as much honey as the amount of sugar called for and no one seems to notice the difference. I add a pinch of cloves to the pumpkin filling too. Thanks for the tip to put the bowl and beater in the freezer. Maybe I will whip this up for Thanksgiving! ~ Lily
I use about half (or less!) of honey as well, and nobody notices. We’ve gone pretty low-sugar in our household, so anything with a hint of sweetness really stands out. As it should be!