If you thought you wouldn’t ever eat custard again after going on an egg-free diet, you’ll love my easy Pumpkin Custard recipe! This no bake custard is a quick and easy paleo vegan dessert. To make it you simply throw the ingredients in a high-powered blender, transfer to adorable mason jars, and then refrigerate.
Dairy-free Pumpkin Custard is the perfect paleo vegan dessert recipe for Thanksgiving. Because it’s so easy to make, it’s also fantastic last minute dessert recipe for Thanksgiving. I usually make my Thanksgiving desserts a day ahead of time, but this recipe is so easy that I whip it up right before we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, and then pull it out of the refrigerator when it’s time for dessert.
We’re on a major pumpkin kick right now. Last weekend, my husband took the boys and their friend Josh to get pumpkins for Halloween. When they returned the three little ones spent hours in the back yard carving their jack-o-lanterns.
Pumpkin Custard
Ingredients
- ½ cup cashews, raw
- 1 tablespoon agar flakes
- 1 pinch celtic sea salt
- 1¼ cups water, boiling
- 1½ cups roasted pumpkin
- ¼ cup agave nectar or honey, plus a little more if you want it sweeter
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1-2 teaspoons ground ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 pinch ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon lemon zest
Instructions
- Place cashews, agar, and salt in a vitamix and process to a fine powder
- Pour boiling water into vitamix and process on high speed
- Add pumpkin, honey, and vanilla and process until smooth
- Blend in cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and lemon zest
- Pour custard into ramekins or ½ cup mason jars
- Refrigerate 30-60 minutes, until set
- Serve
I’ve been creating loads of paleo vegan dessert recipes lately. Have you seen my Paleo Vegan Desserts Recipes page? Along those lines, I was determined to make this a vegan custard since so many of my readers are either vegan, or on an egg-free diet. Making a custard without eggs is not all that easy since eggs are traditionally the main ingredient in custard.
For this recipe, I would not recommend substituting canned pumpkin for the roasted pumpkin. Canned pumpkin is very wet, so this Pumpkin Custard recipe will be substantially altered by using such a watery ingredient. If you do decide to use canned pumpkin you will need to make several adjustments to compensate. I hope you’ll leave a comment if you do experiment with this recipe and use canned pumpkin.
Here are some of my other easy paleo vegan dessert recipes for you!
Katie says
WOW! These look amazing! I just found your blog and I LOVE IT! Totally adding to my google reader! :) Can’t wait for more updates!
miriam says
elana, i made the pumkin cranberry upside down cake and used organic canned pumpkin. it was great—everyone loved it.
thanks,
miriam
Alchemille says
Another tempting recipe though I haven’t tried agar/kanten flakes before (I know it’s a great substitute for gelatin).
I hope you’ll let us know when your book gets published ;).
elana says
Magi,
Thanks for letting us know that the canned pumpkin and maple syrup worked!
Elana
Magi says
Made the custard with canned pumpkin and the texture was just fine! Didn’t have enough agave and used maple syrup to reach 1/4 cup……tasted AMAZING. Thanks so much for this delicious recipe.
elana says
WA -Thanks, I think those jars look nice too and they are handy little receptacles for storing the custard.
Tatyana -Not a silly question at all! How the pumpkin is prepared is an important direction which I left out; I added it in thanks to your comment. Per the squash pie, since squash is naturally sweet, I would consider this a side dish that is on the sweeter end –sort of like baked sweet potato. If you find it too bland, I would suggest adding more agave, though it is not intended to be a dessert, more of a squash puree, perhaps the name is somewhat misleading…
Joy -Thanks.
Beth -Thanks, please let me know how they turn out :-)
Hanni -Love the idea to serve this custard in little hollowed out pumpkins; I hope that if you make it that way you’ll take photos and upload them here in the comment section for us all to see!
Stefani -You got it. I wrote up the “how to roast a pumpkin” post (just above this one) thanks to your question.
Allison -Yes, in preparation it is closer to a panna cotta, however (if you make it) once you taste it, you will find that it is more custard-like in its consistency.
Vittoria -Thanks for the report and so glad you liked it! I am hooked on this one myself. It is a good dessert and an even better late night snack, so soothing.
cdecocina -Thank you very much for your kind words, I will check out your blog too.
Arlene -That is great news; several readers have been asking as to whether this would work. I like your adaptation, it is very intuitive in reducing the liquids in the recipe to compensate for the extra moisture in the canned pumpkin. Bravo.
Angela The cashews give it the creamy consistency. You could use heavy cream instead and play around with that. Or, you might try substituting blanched almonds for cashews. Another reader left a comment here that she made this recipe with pecans and liked the way it turned out. Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Daphne -You had previously asked this question and I had answered it in the comments section of this post. Hope that helps.
Tatyana -I apologize for not getting back to you sooner on this edit. As you will see in my comment above, I actually had not given the proper directive regarding cooked or uncooked and entered it after you pointed it out to me. Thanks again for catching this and for your help!
Paulette -Thanks for letting us in on your experiments and substitutions. I am so glad that you and your husband enjoyed them! Thanks also for your kind words.
Paulette says
I tried the pumpkin custard last night and put it in the fridge overnight. My husband and I had it today after our soup. It was delicious. The consistency was perfect. I didn’t have any agave so I use a tablespoon of rice syrup and a little unfiltered honey. I had no cashews and really wanted to make that recipe so I used pecans instead. I’m glad my husband liked it. He loves pumpkin. I know what we’ll be having for dessert tonight. I will try it again with cashews and agave nectar and hopefully it will turn out as good with the cashews as it did with the pecans. Thanks for your delicious recipes. I tried the stuffed squash last week and loved it. Keep up the good work. Have a blessed week.
Tatyana says
Never mind about the cooked or uncooked. I must have had a tough day, so I did not notice:)
Daphne says
I love your recipes, Elana and would like to ask you if you’ve used Xanthum gum for thicking. If so, could you tell me how to use it so it doesn’t lump. I was making a sauce for chocolate cake from crushed pineapple and decided to use this instead of the usual cornstarch. It lumped when I added cold water, so wondered what I was doing wrong. Since the crushed pineapple is lumpy anyway it wasn’t too noticeable, but would like to know the correct method of mixing it.
Many thanks.
Daphne Woodhouse
Angela says
I am anxious to try this one as I absolutely love pumpkin.
This would also be a great dessert to take to a dinner I am going to be attending.
I have a question about the cashews, a couple of children in attendence are allergic to nuts of all kinds- do you have any suggestions for a replacement or are the cashews absolutely necessary?
Andrea says
Angela: I have made a pumpkin dip (not a custard) that calls for cream cheese and used cashews instead and it wonderful. If the children with nut allergies do not have dairy allergies, you could try cream cheese for this custard recipe. Another thought would be to use a combination of seeds (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower, hemp) as long as they are not made in a facility that also uses nuts. Just a thought…