Low Fat Pumpkin Pie

I promised in my last post that if I were to do any "healthy" baking I would come back here to share the results.  I have to confess that the pumpkin pie recipe I'm about to share with you is not what I would call healthy per se, and you'll see why soon enough.  It is however very low in fat, especially compared to recipes I have read online - that goes for the filling and the pie crust (feels like sacrilege to call it "pastry"!).  There are one or two simple changes I would make if I was going to cook this up again (stated below) and I think once tweaked with, this would make for a pretty healthful dessert or snack.

I've never made pumpkin pie before and usually I wouldn't attempt a healthy version of anything if I didn't know how to make it the regular way first.  I did quite a lot of reading to see what the pie filling is made up of and it's basically a pumpkin custard.  Most recipes call for a couple of whole eggs, and lots of cream and sugar although one or two suggested using mascarpone or even low fat yoghurt to create a more cheesecake-type filling.  Recognizing that I needed a mixture that thinned out the pumpkin but still set to a creamy texture once cooked, I used my baking instincts to create the below recipe. The resulting filling was creamy and spicy and pretty indulgent actually.

The pie crust is kind of a different story.  Real pastry is made up of one part white flour to one part butter; it's less of a "sometimes" food and more of a "birthday and Christmas" food. Don't get me wrong, I love pastry as much as the next person but if I think too hard about what's in it I get the health heebie jeebies!  With that in mind the pie crust below is an excellent alternative.  The recipe I used is from my trusty Healthy Food Guide magazine and was designed for a savoury pie that would be eaten straight from the oven. The pastry is pretty bland but it held itself together and served its purpose of holding all the filling in one place.  If I were to use it again for a dessert pie I'd probably add a bit of a cinnamon or maybe even some sweetener to give a bit more flavour.