Pumpkin Pie Squares

Pumpkin filling

Ingredients:

·         1 Pie Pumpkin
·         1 1/3 Cup sweet condensed milk (one 14 oz can)
·         1 egg
·         1 ¼ tsp cinnamon
·         ½ tsp nutmeg
·         ½ tsp ginger powder
·         ¼ tsp ground cloves
·         1 Cup hot water

Instructions:

1.       Heat oven to 350° F
2.       Cut pumpkin in half without the stem
3.       Scoop out the seeds and strings
4.       Place pumpkin halves cut-side down on foil lined baking sheets
5.       Cover with foil
6.       Bake at 350° F until tender (about 2 hours)
7.       Cool
8.       Scoop out flesh and beat in a heavy duty mixer on high until smooth
*a potato masher or food processor could also be used
9.       Drain if too watery
10.   Beat together just until smooth; 1 1/3 Cup smooth pumpkin, sweet condensed milk, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and hot water
11.   Pour into a greased 9x13 inch baking pan
12.   Bake at 375°F for 55-65 minutes
*center will still move slightly
13.   Take out of oven and cool slightly
14.   Using a rubber spatula, scrape pumpkin filling onto the GF pumpkin squares crust (see recipe below)
15.   Smooth it out evenly
16.   Bake for another 2-5 minutes, just to slightly brown the top of the pumpkin filling and make it look more presentable
17.   Refrigerate until cold
18.   Spread whipped cream (see recipe below) on top and serve cold

GF Pumpkin Squares Crust

Ingredients:

·         2 Cups rice flour

·         1/3 Cup almond flour

·         2/3 Cup potato starch

·         ½ Cup GF oats

·         ½ Cup brown sugar

·         ½ Cup butter, softened

Instructions:

1.       Mix rice flour, almond flour, and potato starch in a bowl
2.       Combine 1 Cup of this mixture with the oats, sugar and butter
3.       Press into an ungreased 9x13 inch baking pan
4.       Bake at 350°F for 10-15 min.
5.       Let cool

Whipped Cream

Ingredients:

·         About 2 Cups heavy whipping cream
·         Sugar
·         Vanilla

Instructions:

1.       Beat about 2 Cups of heavy whipping cream with a mixer until cream is fluffy and peaks form
2.       Fold in about ¼ Cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla
3.       Fold in more sugar and vanilla to taste
4.       Keep cold

Commentary: 

This last September, I was craving pumpkin pie so bad.  I went to the stores to try and find the canned pumpkin filling but couldn't find any.  Apparently pumpkin season doesn't arrive until October. Anyway, you can imagine what I did when I finally saw pie pumpkins at the store.

I had never made a pie from scratch before, but luckily, the pie pumpkin I bought had a recipe attached to the pumpkin.  The recipe was great except for the 'put smooth pumpkin in pie shell' part. To fix this, I thought pumpkin squares might be easier to make GF.  So, I looked on the internet and found the general instructions for pumpkin squares crust. Of course I had to substitute the wheat flour for rice flour and and some starch, but I also decided to include almond flour because I thought that sounded good.

The next part is easy, right?  'Pour smooth pumpkin mixture into shell and bake for an hour.'  This actually didn't work out so well.  The crust ended up burning.  So, I tried cooking the pumpkin filling by itself for 30 min. and then adding it to the crust to finish cooking.  The crust still burned.  The only thing that really ended up working was cooking the pumpkin filling by itself for the full amount of time and then adding it on top of the crust. The pumpkin squares didn't look very appetizing after that. So I smoothed the pumpkin all out and let it brown in the oven for a few min. Then, I added whipped cream on top. After that, no one knew the difference.

As a last note, I prefer the pumpkin squares after they've sat in the fridge for two days.  The sitting time makes the crust not as hard.