Best Vegan Pumpkin Pie

1. Put an oven rack at the lowest position in the oven.
2. Put a baking sheet on that lowest oven rack.
3. Preheat oven to 400°F.
4. Put the pie crust into a standard size pie tin. Line pie crust with foil in the middle and up the sides. Put a layer of pie weights or pennies on the foil.
5. Bake the pie crust on the baking sheet for 15 minutes. Remove it from the oven.
6. Remove foil and weights/pennies. Rotate the pie crust when you put it back in the oven, and bake for 5 to 20 more minutes until crust is golden brown and crisp. Take the pie crust and baking sheet out of the oven.
7. Reduce the oven temperature to 275°F.
8. While the pie crust is baking, put the soy flour into a small mixing bowl. Add the first amount of water and mix with a spoon. Set this mixture aside.
9. Blend The Vegg Vegan Egg Yolk with the second amount of water in a blender until well mixed. Make sure to use a blender because hand mixing will not work!
10. Combine the Vegg Vegan Egg Yolk mixture, soy flour mixture, full-fat coconut milk, unsweetened coconut milk, cornstarch, and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl. Whisk together until smooth. Set aside.
11. Combine pumpkin or butternut squash puree, sweet potato, sugar, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice and salt in a heavy-bottomed stockpot (I use an 8-quart stockpot). Bring to a sputtering simmer over medium heat.
12. Simmer the pumpkin mixture for 15 minutes on medium heat, stirring constantly and mashing any bits of sweet potato against the sides of the pot, until shiny and very thick. During the last minute or two, the mixture should be stiff and so thick that it’s pretty difficult to stir. Use a spatula to scrape the the bottom, sides, and corners of the pot as you stir. If you’re using butternut squash, this process may only take 10 minutes.
13. Remove pot from heat and whisk in the liquid mixture until well mixed.
14. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh strainer set over a medium bowl, using the back of a ladle to press the mixture through the strainer. Don’t get too fussy about this—you’ll end up with a layer of pumpkin and potato bits that don’t easily strain through. That’s OK. Just stop once you’ve got the liquid-like parts out.
15. Whisk the strained mixture again.
16. Pour the mixture into the warm pre-baked pie crust.
17. Smooth the top of the pie filling with a spatula.
18. Fill a roasting pan with about 1/2 inch of hot water.
19. Carefully put the roasting pan on the lowest oven rack.
20. Bake pie on the rack above the roasting pan at 275°F, until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center reads 170°F. For me, this takes 1 hour and 40 minutes or so when I fill a crust with all the filling. Check on your crust during baking; if it starts getting too brown, cover it with foil.
21. Turn off the oven. Crack the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Leave the pie in the oven to cool.
22. After the pie cools to room temperature (about 2-3 hours), refrigerate it uncovered for several hours to help it firm up some more.

Notes:
1. I just microwave a sweet potato using the Better Homes and Gardens method until the potato is tender. Then I slice open the skin, discard the skin, and use the cooked sweet potato in this recipe. You don’t even need to mash it first.
2. If you make homemade pumpkin puree, make sure to drain the pumpkin puree overnight—just set it in a sieve over a bowl. If you want to simplify, and have a pie that tastes more “pumpkiny” than pumpkin, use roasted and puréed butternut squash. It has less water content than pumpkin, so you don’t need to let it drain overnight.
3. I adapted the Cook’s Illustrated pumpkin pie recipe from 2008 to make it vegan.