Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie

This is more a recipe for the filling than than the pastry itself - in some places you can buy pre-made gluten-free pie crusts (try Trader Joe's and Bristol Farms in the US) and in other places there are gluten-free pie crust mixes you can buy (I've used Bob's Red Mill, it's fine), else you could make your own mix of gluten free flours (I'd recommend finer, sweeter tasting ones like tapioca flour, rice flour, even coconut flour). Making and rolling out gluten-free pastry is a pain because it's extremely delicate and tends to fall apart very easily due to the lack of gluten. So unless the pastry is the most important part of the pie for you, I say take the easiest method available!  And now for the important part - the filling:


Ingredients

• Enough pastry to line a pie dish
• 1.5 cups (1 small or half medium sized) buttercup squash (called kabocha squash in the US)
• 2 tbs (1oz) melted butter
• 1 tsp each of ginger, cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp each of mace, ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (4oz) brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (4oz) white sugar
• 2 tbs gluten-free flour (I used tapioca flour, I imagine coconut or oat flour would also be fine)
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup milk

Instructions

Yes, could use use tinned pumpkin instead of the squash, but pumpkin is basically pretty tasteless and using the squash instead will make a much tastier pie.  To prepare the squash, the easiest way to prepare this is cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, wrap in foil, and bake for 30-60 minutes in a medium heat oven until it's soft, then it just scoops out. You can do this a few days in advance, whenever you have time (or even further in advance, and freeze the squash for future use).

Line a pie dish with the pastry.

In a bowl stir together mashed squash, butter, and the spices.

In another bowl beat eggs thoroughly with fork or whisk, then stir in sugar, gf flour, salt, and milk.

Mix the two mixtures together and pour into the pastry. Bake at 450 F for 15 minutes, then turn down to 350F for another 45 minutes (until a knife poked into the middle comes out clean).

Serve cold, with whipped cream.