#3: Pumpkin Creme Pies

When I studied abroad in Germany, the fall semester of my senior year, I was extremely homesick. Not only did I miss my friends, and all things familiar, but I strongly felt the language barrier as a novice German student. To cope, I baked. It was quite an adventure finding the called for ingredients, and google translate became a close ally. In a Supermarkt, there are many distinct varieties of flour, and chocolate chips are nowhere to be found. I baked treats each week and brought them to my Bible Study with fellow American students, and to every school function I could. Among my college housemates in Seattle I was certainly the least experienced, but in Germany my desserts of desperation were legendary.

As it was fall, I longed to make something with pumpkin. I searched the stores for pumpkin puree, but all I could find was pickled pumpkin. After weeks of searching aisles in vain, I bought a pumpkin and submitted to pureeing it myself.

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I knew it would be some work, so I picked a recipe worth the effort–pumpkin creme pies, a fall twist on the beloved oatmeal creme pies. After baking them the night before, I brought the adorable little treats in a tupperware with me on the train for a weekend trip to Amsterdam. The girls I was traveling with were delighted. We gobbled them up sitting around a table on the train.

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Yield: 30-40 two-bite creme pies

INGREDIENTS

Creme Pies:

  • 1 cup Brown Sugar
  • 1 cup Sugar
  • 1 cup Coconut Oil
  • 1 can Pumpkin (15 Oz. or nearly 2 cups)
  • 2 whole Eggs
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • 3 cups All-purpose Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
  • 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
  • ½ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoons Ground Cloves
  • ½ teaspoons Salt

Filling:

  • 1 package Cream Cheese Softened (8 Oz.)
  • 1 stick Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature
  • 1 package Powdered Sugar (16 Oz.)
  • ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
  • ¼ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

INSTRUCTIONS

Creme Pies:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Beat together brown sugar, sugar, oil and pumpkin. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.
  4. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.
  5. Cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using a pastry bag with a round tip, or a big zip top plastic bag with one corner snipped, squeeze out concentric circles of batter, starting from the middle and working outward until the circles are about 2 inches in diameter.
  6. Bake for 11 minutes, or until firm, and cool on a rack.

Cream Cheese Filling:

  1. Beat together cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon.
  2. Frost flat side of half the pies and top with another piece.
  3. Enjoy right away, or chill overnight. They keep very nicely in the fridge. And as I discovered, they’ll keep in a tupperware for a couple of hours outside the fridge.

NOTES

  • If you’re missing one of the spices for the creme pies, you may substitute pumpkin spice for all of them.
  • The original recipe calls for vegetable oil, but I try to use coconut oil whenever I can for the health benefits.

Adapted from Tasty Kitchen

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