I made this recipe for Thanksgiving and my guests went nuts. They said it was the best pumpkin pie they have ever eaten. This includes people who don’t even like pumpkin pie. It was light and flavorful but I think the cream cheese and mascarpone cut through the cloying pumpkin taste that turns some people off. Also I made it with a pecan crust just like a cheesecake. That was a nice twist to a regular pie. I doubled the recipe and made it in a casserole dish but a deep dish pie pan works for a single recipe.

Ingredients:

Crust:

2 cups pecans

1 tbsp. melted butter

pinch of sea salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp. Erythritol or Xylitol

Filling:

4 oz cream cheese, softened

4 oz, mascarpone, softened

1 15oz. can pumpkin puree

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered Xylitol or Erythritol, depending on how sweet you like it (you can powder it in a high speed blender like a Nutribullet or Vitamix)

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg or 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grind the pecans in a food processor until they become like pecan meal. Mix them together with the other crust ingredients and press into a deep dish pie plate. Add more melted butter if too dry to be able to be pressed into a crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Remove to cool. Turn up the oven to 400 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and mascarpone until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. ( You can do this in a Mixmaster using the whip attachment, but I did it by hand. Sometimes that Mixmaster beats it too much and the cheesecake consistency is no longer creamy.)  Add pumpkin puree and mix in well. Add in melted butter and vanilla and beat together. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add powdered sweetener, cinnamon, nutmeg or pie spice and salt.

Pour pumpkin filling into prepared pie pan. Bake for 15 minutes then lower the temperature of the oven to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 4-0 – 50 minutes. The filling should be baked all the way through with just a little jiggle in the center. Remove from the oven and cool. Served with whipped cream.