I have had this recipe on my to-bake list since the spring; I have a weird relationship with pumpkin pie where growing up, all of the pumpkin pies I ate tasted like cinnamon-caked cardboard in a pie crust. And it was a shame because on so many of the cartoons I grew watching, pumpkin pie was always hyped up to be this quintessential fall dessert. It really was not until I grew older and experimented with essentially making a pie with a pumpkin-flavored custard filling that the idea of pumpkin pie started to grow on me. I actually like the flavor of pumpkin on its own, but I feel like with a lot of the pumpkin pies I grew up eating, there was just an aggressive amount of spicing, which completely overwhelmed the pleasant pumpkin notes. This is very controversial, but with this recipe, I did not want to use cinnamon; I feel like everyone uses a ton of spices in their pumpkin pie, and it can be overpowering. I am saying this now, this is not a pumpkin pie that is decked out with cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. If you are looking for that kind of pie, you can totally add those spices to it, but it misses the point of why I opted to make this so spice-less. I refrained from using any spices, because I wanted the pumpkin flavor to really come through in a clean manner. While a tiny bit of spice can bring out warming, comforting notes in the sweet potato or pumpkin, trying a pie without that is actually an eye-opening experience to how tasty pumpkin can be on its own. Honestly, I recommend everyone at least once in their life try eating a spice-less pumpkin pie. The flavor is actually really mellow and pleasant, yet has that comforting roasted feeling since the filling is baked. I feel like pumpkin on its own has a sweet potato-like taste to it, and a sweet potato is very pleasant to eat with just salt and butter. So with this pie, we are focusing on pumpkin, and flavoring it with maple to bring in those earthy, sweet, autumnal notes.

For the recipe itself, we have a maple-pepita pie crust with a caramelized maple-pumpkin filling, and vanilla chantilly on top. The crust will take the most amount of time to make/cook, so always focus on the crust first. Do not even bother making your filling until the crust is at least in the oven baking, because you will need to first make the dough, rest the dough, shape the dough, then bake the dough before you even have a tart shell to fill. I used whole wheat flour in the crust because it adds a nutty flavor that works nicely with the earthier notes of the maple syrup and the toasty, salty, crunchy pepitas(pumpkin seeds) mixed throughout it. And this might be a bit of a personal bias, but I grew up eating whole wheat pancakes, so drowning those in maple syrup takes me back to breakfasts as a kid. With the filling, it is a very technical filling. You have to make brown butter, which is done by heating butter until it melts completely, bubbles up, and turns an amber brown color. Then you also have to caramelize maple syrup by also heating it up until the sugars caramelize. Then you have to combine those with pumpkin puree and eggs, and if you want your pumpkin filling to be silky and smooth, puree it all together and pass it through a sieve. And that’s just the prep for the filling; you still need to actually bake it in the tart shell itself. However, saying it is absolutely worth it is an understatement. The filling is silky, custardy, the right amount of sweetness, and tastes warming and comforting in the same way a roasted yam would. It is delicious and yet the flavors are clean and very pumpkin-forward. The cream on top, so long as you have made whipped cream before, this is a no-brainer. Do not overwhisk it, and you are good to go there. All in all, this is not an insanely difficult recipe to make, but the filling may have a few steps more than what you would expect for a pumpkin pie filling, but each contribute to making this pie as absolutely delicious as it is!

For the maple-pepita pie crust:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 stick unsalted butter, finely diced and kept cold
a pinch of salt
1.5oz maple syrup
.1oz vanilla bean paste
2oz toasted and salted pepitas

In a bowl, mix together the flour, butter, and salt, mixing everything into a crumbly, sandy mixture. To that, add in the salt, maple syrup, and vanilla bean paste to form a dough. Lastly, mix into the dough the pepitas. Refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes. Then on a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to be roughly 10 inches in diameter. Then transfer the dough into a lightly oiled 8-inch tart tin, pressing the dough into the sides of the tin. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork, then place parchment on top of it. Weigh down the dough with either uncooked rice or dried beans, and bake at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes. Allow the tart shell to cool down before attempting to fill.

For the caramelized maple-pumpkin filling:
15oz pumpkin puree
8oz maple syrup
4 tbsp unsalted butter, browned
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
a pinch of salt
.1oz vanilla bean paste

Pour your pumpkin puree into a bowl. In a pan, heat up the maple syrup until it comes up to a boil, then reaches 300 degrees F. Pour the hot maple syrup into the pumpkin puree and stir that in. Then add to the pumpkin puree your other ingredients, whisking everything together until combined. Optionally, you can use an immersion blender instead of a whisk for a guaranteed smoother consistency. Pass the pumpkin filling through a sieve to remove any lumps. Pour the filling into the already baked pie crust(still kept in the pie tin at this point) and bake at 375 degrees F for 40 minutes. Transfer the pie to the refrigerator and allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes before attempting to remove the pie from the tart pan.

For the vanilla bean chantilly:
6oz heavy cream
.5oz confectioner’s sugar
a pinch of salt
.1oz vanilla bean paste

In a bowl, whisk everything together until stiff peaks form. Using warmed spoons, quenelle the cream and place the quenelles around the edges of the pie.

For garnish:
Confectioner’s sugar

Dust the edges of the pie with confectioner’s sugar prior to serving.