Gluten-free pumpkin pie, from scratch

I didn’t start out to make from-scratch pumpkin pie— it was an accident of being unable to find canned pumpkin in Poland. However, as circumstances go, it’s one I’m happy to deal with. Interestingly, Polish doesn’t have a separate word for pumpkin (which is a type of squash.) When you buy pumpkins and squash, they’re all the price. Not surprising that Polish wouldn’t have a specific word for this orange veggie, as all gourds come from the Americas, and not Europe. There also isn’t a word for pumpkin pie, as pie doesn’t really have an exact equivalent. Cake is too full of flour; tort is too fancy. The best I could come up with is “ciasto dyniowe” which translates to “pumpkin cake.”

First, assemble your ingredients. Sugar pumpkins, like the one pictures, are quite sweet and make for great pie.

The most difficult part of making pumpkin pie from scratch is cutting the pumpkin in half. And by “cutting,” I mean “hacking slowly and carefully while muttering swear words under your breath.” Pumpkins aren’t known for being small, dainty vegetables. Your best best: use a small but sharp knife, and be careful. Carefully, stab the knife into the side of the pumpkin, and slowly work the knife around the circumference of the pumpkin. Think more of sawing and less of slicing.

Step one: hack the pumpkin in half. Step two: scoop out seeds.

Once you’ve cut the pumpkin in half, use a sturdy spoon to scoop out the seeds (save ’em if you want to roast them later.) Roast the pumpkin for about 45 minutes at 350 F/ 157 C. Exact roasting time will depend on how thick the pumpkin is.

Once the pumpkin is completely roasted and a fork goes in easily, let the pumpkin cool. The next step will be adding eggs, a splash of cream and, of course, your spices.

Blended pumpkin. A hand blender works best.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to explain how to make the filling, then the crust. Generally, I make the crust dough first, refrigerate it; then as the dough is in the fridge, I get the pumpkin filling ready.

One note about baking gluten-free: you can use a store-bought blend, or the one I have listed. But you want to be sure to use cold butter when making the dough, and not to mix the butter too much— you want little bits of butter in the flour. When the crust is baking, the water in those small pieces of butter will evaporate, leaving behind tiny air pockets and giving you flaky pie crust. This step is extra important when working with gluten-free flour, which can be difficult to bake with.

Ingredients

For the crust:

1/2 cup tapioca flour

3/4 cup millet flour

1/4 cup amaranth OR sorgrum flour

1/2 cup potato starch

1/2 cup rice flour

1 teaspoon of xanthum gum

110 grams / 1 stick of butter, cold

2 eggs

1/8 teaspoon salt (optional)

Measure all the flours out and add to a mixing bowl. Add the xanthum gum and salt as well.
Sift all the different flours together so they are completely mixed (you may need to use two mixing bowls and a funnel to do this properly.)
Add the eggs and blend thoroughly.
Now for the fun part: add the cold butter. I use a heavy wooden spoon to help mix things. Be careful not to blend the butter and flour too much— you still want to be able to see small bits of butter in your dough.
Once the butter and flour have been combined, form into a ball and refrigerate for two hours.
When you have the pie filling ready, slowly and carefully roll out the dough into a round, flat shape. To keep everything from sticking, I use a combination of sprinkles of rice flour and parchment paper. (The parchment paper makes it especially easy to transfer the rolled crust dough into the glass dish.)
Once you’ve rolled out the dough to about 3/4 a centimeter thick, transfer it to the round baking dish. Pour in the pie filling, smooth out, and bake at 250 F / 120 C for 15 minutes, then turn down the heat and bake at 150 F / 70 C for 45 minutes or until done.

For the filling:

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

2 cups of pureed pumpkin

2 eggs

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/3 white sugar

tablespoon of cream

Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds.
Bake the pumpkin for 45 minutes at 350 F/ 157 C.
Let the pumpkin cool, then scoop out of the shell.
Add the pumpkin, spices, sugar, eggs and cream and blend with hand blender until completely smooth and free from lumps or stringiness. (You may need to adjust the amount of cream you add.)
When the pumpkin filling is ready, add to the crust and follow the directions above for baking.