Let’s talk about fall and pumpkin recipes, shall we? More exactly, pumpkin custard.
Fall is a wonderful season, especially if it follows a summer during which we were able to spend a lot of time outside playing, biking, running, basking in the sun, catching fish, camping, and just plain relaxing.
Fall seems like it is a season of action. School starts, canning happens (anybody canning this year?). Fall is also the time to choose and carve pumpkins, or go to a nearby farm to pick apples and enjoy them sprinkled with cinnamon and baked in the oven. Oh, fall is truly delicious!
Fall also means eating pumpkin for breakfast, lunch, and supper until we don’t want to see or hear about pumpkin anymore and replace the pumpkin with Christmas cookies… But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start planning the Christmas holidays (or you can, if you are anything like me) because fall is here for us to enjoy. As is pumpkin with its smooth, creamy texture.
We enjoy eating pumpkin in many ways. In smoothies, simply baked in the oven and sprinkled with coconut sugar, roasted with a myriad of other vegetables, or in a variety of desserts. This pumpkin custard is one of our favourite desserts with pumpkin. My son, if allowed, would only eat pumpkin custard all day long.
I have been making this pumpkin custard for a couple of years now, since I bought the “Practical Paleo” cookbook written by Diane Sanfilippo. This recipe is adapted from there. I modified the original recipe by lowering the amounts of pumpkin and maple syrup and by increasing the amounts of sea salt and ground nutmeg. We enjoy eating this pumpkin custard for many days in a row as it keeps well in the fridge for up to 4 days.
This pumpkin custard is not overly sweet and it becomes extremely delicious once we add some coconut cream as topping. Of course, you can always use whipping cream as a topping if dairy is not an issue.
This melt-in-your mouth pumpkin custard is rich in:
- Protein and healthy fats from eggs
- Fiber, vitamins A and K, and minerals (iron, manganese, magnesium, potassium, copper) from pumpkin
- Healthy fats from coconut milk
- Manganese and zinc from the maple syrup
- Manganese, calcium, and fiber from cinnamon
- Anti-inflammatory compounds from ginger
- Antioxidants from nutmeg
- Trace minerals from sea salt
- 6 eggs
- 3 ½ cups pumpkin purée
- 800 ml coconut milk
- ¾ cup maple syrup
- 1 ½ tablespoons vanilla extract
- 4 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- Coconut cream or whipping cream – to serve
- In a big bowl mix the wet ingredients, one by one, with a hand mixer (or in the food processor): eggs, pumpkin puree, coconut milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Mix the spices (cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg, sea salt) in a small bowl and add them to the pumpkin mixture. Mix until every ingredient is well incorporated.
- Pour the pumpkin custard into greased oven-safe ramekins. Place the ramekins on 2 cookie sheets. Carefully place the cookie sheets with ramekins in the cold oven. Pour cold water into the cookie sheets until their bottom is covered with water.
- Turn the oven on. Bake at 350⁰ F for approximately 55 minutes until the top of the pumpkin custard becomes light brown.
- The pumpkin custard tastes great warm or cold. It keeps well in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- Serve with coconut cream or whipping cream (if dairy is not an issue) on top.
- As you might have noticed, this pumpkin custard has no crust. It is very light and it melts in your mouth. And, as all the recipes on this site, it is gluten- and dairy-free.
Source of nutritional information:
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