Healthy Pumpkin Honey Greek Yogurt Pie

Healthy Pumpkin Honey Greek Yogurt Pie

Crust:
135g / 1 1/2 cup oats, ground into flour
20g / 2 tbsp ground flax
2/3 tsp cinnamon
20g / 1 tbsp honey
15g / 1 tbsp unrefined coconut oil
2 tbsp / 30ml cold water

Filling:
1kg raw pumpkin (you will get 500g after you cook and puree it*)
285g / 1 cup Greek yogurt
pinch of salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
170g / 1/2 cup honey, melted
1 tbsp / 12g spelt flour

*To make the pumpkin puree, bring a large pot filled with water to boil. Cut the raw pumpkin into chunks (about 5cm/2inch) and cook in water until soft. Let cool. Transfer to a clean kitchen towel. Wrap the pumpkin up into the towel, twist up the ends and squeeze the water out until you have half of the weight you had in the beginning.

1) Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F and line the bottom of a 21 cm / 8 inch springform pan with parchment paper.

2) To make the crust, Mix together ground oats, flax, cinnamon and honey in a medium bowl. Add coconut oil and mix, using your fingers, until the mixture looks crumbly. Add water and mix until it forms a ball. If the dough looks too crumbly and doesn't hold, add more water. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan and place in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

3) To make the filling, mix together all the ingredients until very well combined. Pour onto the crust and bake for about 30 minutes or the pie is set and the center looks firm.

4) Remove from the oven and let cool completely. Transfer to the fridge and let sit overnight (if you have patience). It's much better cold! Serve plain or drizzle some honey/agave/maple syrup or anything you like.

Recipe by collecting memories

Chewy Pumpkin Bars

Before the fall ends, I wanted to share another pumpkin recipe with you. Chewy pumpkin bars! First I wanted to call them "pumpkin blondies", but blondies are more cakey and these bars had more fudgy texture. 
I was actually quite surprised with the results. They came out even more delicious than I expected. Brown butter, honey and cinnamon made it a perfect dessert for fall. If you think you've tried everthing with pumpkin, think again because you definitely have to try these!

Chewy Pumpkin Bars 

56g (1/2 stick) brown butter

100g )1/2 cup) sugar

60g honey

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp salt

1/4tsp cinnamon

1 cup (220g) pumpkin puree

125g (1 cup) flour

1) In a small saucepan, add butter and cook until light brown. Do not stir. Watch it carefully so you don't brown it too much. Add sugar, honey and stir to combine. 

2) Once cooled a little, add in the egg. Add vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon.

3) Transfer to a large bowl. Mix in the pumpkin puree and finally mix in the flour.

4) Bake in a 180C (350F) preheated oven for 25 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Recipe by collecting memories

Salted Pumpkin Crumb Pie

Pumpkin craziness continues! The possibilities of incorporating pumpkin into every dish are endless. But this time - nothing super surprising. It's actually a ridiculously easy and simple pumpkin pie made using just a few basic ingredients. Personally, I've never made a pumpkin pie with a crumb topping before so this was kind of new to me. The crumbs and the crust are super soft. Although the crumbs have some nice crunch especially around the edges. The filling, of course, is creamy dreamy, and, what I found truly amazing, was the salt added to the crumbs & the crust. Don't try to omit salt here!!
This is not overly sweet but it's sweet enough. I think the flavors are balanced perfectly so I kept it simple but if you like making things a little bit more complicated, drizzling it with some caramel sauce or dusting with some powdered sugar sounds like a good idea.

Salted Pumpkin Crumb Pie

Crust:
125g (1 cup) flour
1/4 tsp salt
50g (1/4 cup) white sugar
56g (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
1 egg

Crumb topping:
60g (1/2 cup) flour
55g (1/4 cup) white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
56g (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature

Filling:
425g (15oz) pumpkin puree
1 tsp cinnamon
150g (3/4 cup) white sugar
120ml (1/2 cup) milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten

1) Make the crust: In a medium bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and mix to combine. Add salt & flour and mix just until smooth. Press into a 18cm round baking pan and refrigerate while you make the topping and the filling.

2) To make the crumb topping, mix together flour, sugar and salt. Add butter and using your fingertips, knead to make large crumbs. Refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

3) For the filling, mix together pumpkin puree, cinnamon and sugar. Add eggs and milk. Pour the mixture onto the pie crust and top with crumbs. Do not press.

4) Bake in a 180C/350F preheated oven for 1 hour. Cool before slicing.

Recipe by collecting memories

Pumpkin Crumb Coffee Cake

It's fall and I haven't been posting any pumpkin recipes. What a shame. So when I realized that, I bought a ton of pumpkin and started experimenting. First, I made my own pumpkin puree as it's much healthier and cheaper than the store-bought one. I accidentally made way too much. It's still in the fridge and I can't manage to use it up. Anyway. One day, I decided to make a coffee cake. Pumpkin coffee cake. To be honest, I'm not a fan of coffee cakes and I usually make it once or twice a year. I mean, I like it, but I will better make brownies, oatmeal bars or apple pie instead of a coffee cake. But, as you know, pumpkin makes magic happen in desserts. So I thought a pumpkin coffee cake would be different. And I was right. This was the moistest coffee cake EVER. I even wasn't sure if I can call this a coffee cake. This is insanely moist. And It keeps moist for days (Well, I guess. This cake was finished in one day). It wasn't too sweet, too spicy, too dry, too moist. It had a perfect texture and a sweet, crunchy crumb topping. What else could you want??

Pumpkin Crumb Coffee Cake

Cake:
250g (2 cups) flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
225g (1 cup) white sugar
84g (3/4 stick) butter, softened
2 eggs
425g (15 ounces) pumpkin puree

Crumb topping:
56g (1/2 stick) butter, cold
70g (1/4 cup + 1 tbsp) white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
93g (3/4 cup) flour

1) Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Grease a 20x20cm (8x8inch) metal baking dish or prepare a silicone baking dish. 

2) In a small bowl, combine together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and ginger. 

3) In a large bowl, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat to incorporate. Add pumpkin puree and mix to combine. 

4) Add the dry ingredients into the wet mixture and mix with a metal spoon just until smooth. Pour the batter into the baking dish. 

5) Make the crumb topping: combine all the ingredients and mix with your fingertips until crumbly. Sprinkle onto the batter. Don't press.

6) Bake for 40-45 minutes. Cool at least 1 hour before slicing. 

Recipe by collecting memories

Caramelized Onion Pumpkin Galette with Feta Cheese & Balsamic Sauce

Fall is almost here and it's time to start cooking with my favourite veggie - pumpkin! Why favourite? Because pumpkin is great with everything. Really, I couldn't think of anything that would taste wrong with pumpkin. You can make anything from pie to ice cream or from bread to stew.

And yes, summer wasn't very productive for me. I've only posted.. hmm how many times.. once? Yes, once. Shame on me. But now I definitely have much more ideas and recipes to try and write about. And here's one of them! This galette wasn't planned, I just had some leftover feta cheese in my fridge which was about to expire so I had to make something with it. I didn't expect anything special, but this galette came out surprisingly good! No, it was freakin' amazing! The dough is simple, a little bit flaky with crunchy edges but still soft and a little bit chewy. And that amazing pumpkin and caramelized onion filling topped with salty crumbled feta and drizzled with slightly sweet reduced balsamic... Yum! This is definitely a keeper!

Caramelized Onion Pumpkin Galette with Feta Cheese & Balsamic Sauce
Pastry:
185g flour
15ml /1 tbsp oil
pinch salt
1 small egg
60ml/1/4 cup water

Filling:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions (265g), sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
250g grated pumpkin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
50g feta cheese

Reduced Balsamic Sauce:
1/2c balsamic vinegar
1-2 tsp sugar

1) Mix flour, salt and olive oil with a fork. Add egg and mix to combine. Add water and mix until the mixture forms into a ball. Dust your hands with flour and knead for a few minutes, just until it holds together. The dough shouldn't be sticky. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and place in the fridge while you make the filling. (Usually I'm too lazy to oil the bowl so I just throw it in the fridge and leave it).

2) Preheat oven to 200C (400F).

3) In a small saucepan, place balsamic vinegar and sugar and bring to boil. Once it starts boiling, reduce the heat to low and let simmer until the vinegar is reduced in half.

4) Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan. Add onions and cook, covered, for about 5 minutes over medium-high heat. When they start browning, stir once, cover and leave to cook a little bit more. You can reduce the heat and/or add more oil if they brown too quickly. Once the onions are nicely brown, soft and fragrant, add garlic, pumpkin, salt, parsley, oregano and thyme. Stir, cover and cook over medium heat until the pumpkin softens, from 5 to 10 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed. Turn off the heat and leave uncovered.

5) Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out into a 2-3mm thick circle. Transfer it to the baking tray (dusted with flour!). Spread the filling onto the dough, leaving about 5cm space on the edges. Sprinkle with feta cheese and fold the edges over the filling. (You could brush the edges of the pastry with egg wash but, again, I was too lazy to do that and I don't think it's necessary).

6) Bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool for 5-10 minutes and drizzle with balsamic sauce. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Recipe by collecting memories

Pumpkin Pie Pancakes

Yes, I know! It's not the best time to post pumpkin recipes as the pumpkin season has ended quite a long time ago. But I can't keep this recipe unpublished any longer. We all know how good pumpkin recipes are. And I'm sure we all love thick and fluffy pumpkin pancakes. I am also sure that we all love pumpkin pie. What about a combination of these two? A pumpkin pie in a pancake form! These really have a texture of a pie and at the same time they're thick, soft and a little bit chewy pancakes. And who cares it's not a pumpkin season anymore? You can always find pumpkin at a supermarket. Or you can save this recipe in your to-bake list for the upcoming fall. But will you be able to wait so long??

Pumpkin Pie Pancakes

125g flour

30g sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp ginger

1 egg

240g puree

1/2c milk
Butter, for frying & topping
Honey, for drizzling (optional)

1) In a large bowl, combine together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger.

2) In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg. Add pumpkin puree and milk and stir to combine.

3) Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix just until combined.

4) Heat butter on a skillet. Fry pancakes on low heat for a few minutes on both sides until lightly browned. Serve immediately with additional butter and a drizzle of honey.

Recipe by collecting memories

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie (low-fat)

I'm always super excited when it comes to creating something healthy. It is always a challenge to make a dessert guilt-free and delicious. I like omitting oil and butter when I make something healthy so another challenge is to make a dessert moist. That's why pumpkin puree and honey are my favourite ingredients, they always create perfectly chewy and moist texture and you could never guess there is no butter or oil in it. 
And now about this chocolate pumpkin pie: the result was unexpected. It didn't rise much and had a dense, chewy, fudge-like texture. You almost can't taste pumpkin in it, I added some lemon zest so the pumpkin layer is more like a lemon layer which matches perfectly with the cocoa layer. This recipe is definitely a keeper. It's quite unusual, but that's why I like experimenting!

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie (low-fat)

125g quick oats, ground
125g all purpose flour
65g light brown sugar
100g white granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder

400g pumpkin puree
2 eggs, lightly beaten
65g honey, melted
20g sour cream
Zest from 1 lemon

20g dark unsweetened cocoa powder
30g white granulated sugar
50ml + 50ml boiling water (separated)

1) In a large bowl, combine together ground oats, all purpose flour, light brown sugar, white sugar and baking powder. Set aside.

2) In a medium bowl, combine together pumpkin puree, eggs, honey, sour cream and lemon zest. Set aside.

3) Add pumpkin puree mixture into the flour mixture and mix just until smooth.

4) In a medium bowl, combine together cocoa powder and white sugar. Mix in 50ml of boiling water and stir. Let sit for 2 minutes.

5) Add half of the pumpkin puree/flour mixture into the cocoa/water mixture, spoon by spoon. Mix until you get a smooth batter. Set aside.

6) Add another 50ml of boiling water into the remaining pumpkin puree/flour mixture and stir until you get a smooth batter.

7) Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Ligtly grease a 23cm round springform pan.

8) Spread 1/2 of pumpkin batter into the pan. Top with 1/2 of cocoa batter. Spread the remaining pumpkin batter on top and top with the remaining cocoa batter.

9) Bake for 35-45 minutes. Cool completely (preferably leave it overnight) and slice.

Recipe by collecting memories