It’s still Vegan MoFo III, the Vegan Month of Food.

Yesterday, I extolled the virtues of making your own pumpkin puree. Today, I show you what I did with it. Pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin pie with palm sugar caramel and cream, to be exact.

I was inspired to make palm sugar caramel after reading the upcoming menu for this weekend’s 4CV in New York. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, 4CV stands for 4 Course Vegan; a fine dining experience held at the Brooklyn loft of Chef Matteo every weekend. If you’re headed to New York you should definitely consider making reservations for 4CV. You can also sign up for updates and whenever the 4CV menu arrives in my inbox, I always skip ahead to see what they’re serving for dessert. That’s the kind of girl I am. This week it’s pumpkin pie with palm sugar caramel.

You can find palm sugar at your local Asian grocery or Asian food aisle. Palm sugar is made from the sap of various species of palm tree (often sugar palms, date palms, and coconut palms). It is sometimes sold as ‘coconut sugar’ but is not to be confused with ‘date sugar’ (which is made from ground up dates). It usually comes in solid form, often cylindrical or cubic. Cut a slice off (or grate some) and caramelize the same way you would regular sugar: heat it gradually in a small skillet until it liquefies. Palm sugar has a much stronger flavour than regular sugar and already has a rich, caramel taste. It is similar to brown sugar but darker and more intense.

The cream you see is Nutriwhip – it’s an oil based product similar to Coolwhip except that it’s dairy-free (Coolwhip is an oil based product with traces of dairy). This happens to be the light version which I think is just as creamy as the regular version. It comes in liquid form and is stored in the refrigerator, like whipping cream, and must be whipped up – which is half the fun, right?

I used the delicious Pumpkin Pie recipe from Get it Ripe, Jae Steele’s first book – but lest you panic, I recently came across this recipe online for Pumpkin n’ Pecan Vegan Pie and it looks similarly scrumptious. I’ve been tinkering with my own pumpkin pie recipe but it’s not quite ready for public consumption – I am aiming to get it posted in time for the Holidays for all ye recipe seekers.