Butternut Bourbon Cream Pie Saves Thanksgiving Dessert for Pumpkin Pie Haters

We’ve all probably experienced it: the hushed whisper following the turkey dinner, the hesitant almost shameful confession, barely audible: "I… don’t like pumpkin pie". Pumpkin pie is not for everyone, let’s face it. When you think about it, spicy pumpkin mush baked inside a pie crust is a bit strange.

As a kid, I did not love pumpkin pie either. I was always grateful for the sweet sight of a steaming apple pie on the Thanksgiving dessert table. I’d still help myself to a sliver of the dreaded pumpkin pie, for the sake of tradition, and in an ongoing quest to try to understand why everyone goes so gaga over this dessert. I started to appreciate pumpkin pie sometime in my late teens, when I discovered that the best pumpkin pie wasn’t actually made with pumpkin, but with squash. Ideally, one with a deep bright orange flesh, sweet and creamy: butternut, buttercup, delicata will all do the trick.

Over the years, I’ve experimented with any kind of squash dessert that could be served as an alternative to pumpkin pie. One of my favorites is pumpkin maple crème caramel, with its close runner-up: roasted squash crème brûlée. But this year, I decided to try something new. Something that the pumpkin-pie skeptics out there could sink their teeth into.

If pumpkin pie slipped on a silky ballgown, this dessert would be the result: a voluptuous golden custard nestled inside a nutty, cookie-like crust with a hint of spice, topped with Bourbon whipped cream and cinnamon-butter toasted pumpkin seeds. I use puréed roasted butternut squash but buttercup squash and other sweet fleshy squash varieties would work equally well. And yes, pumpkin purée will also do the trick very nicely. The best part is the press-in crust. No rolling out is necessary and it bakes quickly in 10 minutes, with no further baking involved. The consistency is like that of a coconut cream pie, but the taste is all windy fall days, pumpkin spice, and Thanksgiving. Enjoy!