Animal Based Pumpkin Pie

This recipe was born from the curiosity of an animal based dessert. Is it possible? Can it be good? What would it look like?

I came up with the idea of a pemmican crust. Pemmican is a beautiful food coming from the indigenous tribes of North America. A nutrient dense food that was easy to carry around. Ground meat mixed with fat, sometimes berries, or honey too. Traditionally it is made with tallow. But I got curious what it would be like with butter. The trade would be that it would lose some of its incredible shelf life, but in turn I would get the beautiful rich notes of milk fat, that unctuous glory of grassfed butter. It was love at first bite. Sweetening it with maple syrup complimented the richness of butter and beef, cutting it with something that felt warm and familiar. Another trade off would be its stability at higher temperatures, if it gets too warm, it will melt. But used as the base of a dessert it stays firm. Straight out of the fridge it’s like hard butter. But if you let it hang out, come to room temperature a little bit, it becomes more tender, yielding, and some of the more complex flavors of the butter unfold. All in all it was a great success. Paired with a no-bake dessert like a panna cotta or a jello, it’s a no-brainer. High in protein, free from many of the refined foods we try to stay away from, a gift from the animals. Health straight from the earth. It’s a celebration of creativity, the teachings of Dr. Price, and a lovely end to a good meal.

I like to create my jellos and gummies using the method I share below because it allows me to use ingredients like raw milk, raw honey, yogurt, etc without heating it and killing any of the beneficial bacteria and enzymes. I’ve checked it with a thermometer in the past and the mixture never rose above 70 degree fahrenheit. It’s a tried and true process to me at this point, I’ve made thousands of gummies like this.

Making this takes a couple of days. It’s a bit of an investment of time. But the overall working time is pretty minimal.

I’ll list below all of the ingredients you need for both the pemmican crust as well as the clabbered pumpkin spice gummies and then walk you through how to make both.

If you would like to offer it as a plated dessert or show it off you will need a 6 inch springform pan so it will come out easily. [We found this option that is 7″ and would work also!]

[Gelatin Recommendations: 100% grass-fed gelatin from Perfect Supplements. Enjoy 10% off your entire cart with the coupon code “nourish.” Other brands we’d recommend include Bernard Jenson and Vital Proteins.]

Ingredients

Pemican Crust

1 lb grass fed and finished beef
½ lb melted butter
⅓ cup maple syrup

Creamy Clabbered Pumpkin Spice

1 cup pumpkin purée
1 cup sour or clabbered raw milk (fresh raw milk works too)
a spoonful of raw kefir or raw yogurt (optional but encouraged)
⅓ -½ cup honey (½ a cup is pretty sweet in this recipe)
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cloves (I didn’t have any in my pantry but you could add 1/2 teaspoon of allspice here too, a little black pepper too if you’re feeling adventurous)
1 pinch of real sea salt
2 raw egg yolks
6 tablespoons grass fed gelatin

Instructions for the Crust

Dehydrate 1 lb of ground beef at 160 degrees fahrenheit until cracker dry. Overnight has worked well for me. 8 hours.
( a note about dehydrating beef. I’ve had the best success with this when I have ground the beef myself using the smallest dye, passing it through a couple of times. And then when you spread it onto your dehydrator try it’s best to crumble it as fine as you can. Big clumps stuck together can make it difficult for you blender to break it down, and clumps of dried ground beef in your pemmican can be hard on the teeth. The finer you are able to make the powder the better it will be. You can use store bought ground beef but be sure to try and crumble it up as loose as possible)
In a powerful blender, pulverize dried beef into a powder. My VitaMix has worked well for this. You might need to work in small batches but it goes easy.
In a small saucepan, melt your butter on gentle heat and stir in maple syrup.
Combine your melted butter mixture with your beef powder and mix thoroughly.
If you are not making the dessert you can simply place this into a pyrex dish and let it set up in the fridge. Cut portions you’d like to eat. IT’S DELICIOUS!
If you’d like to make the dessert you will need a 6 inch springform pan.
Cut a piece of parchment paper larger than the bottom of your springform pan. Place over the bottom and clamp it shut as normal, capturing the parchment. This just ensures that you will get a clean dismount and that it will not stick to your bottom.
Put the pemmican mixture into the pan and press into the bottom. Flatten as best you can and let it set up in the fridge. You’re now good to go.

Instructions for the Creamy Clabbered Pumpkin Spice

Bloom gelatin. Place 1 1/2-2 cups cold water into a bowl, add dried gelatin and mix until there are no dry spots. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes.
Place bloomed gelatin into a double boiler on lowest heat and dissolve into liquid. Stir occasionally. Low and slow.
(a note on blooming gelatin: When blooming gelatin you want to always add your gelatin powder to water and not the other way. Dries to wets. 4-5 parts water to 1 part gelatin has worked well for me. Once it is bloomed you will need to dissolve it, some folks like to use the microwave for that but I don’t have one and don’t much care for them. So I used a double boiler on low heat. Give it a stir every once and a while and keep it away from direct heat. Burning gelatin smells awful and can impart a really unpleasant flavor. So go low and slow. Inevitably some of your gelatin might stick to your bowl or utensil, simply soak it overnight. Be careful to toss any gelatin that may have settled in your bowl into the trash. Gelatin and plumbing are not friends!)
In your blender combine pumpkin, clabbered milk, cultured dairy, raw honey, cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves, sea salt, and egg yolk. Blend until smooth. If your ingredients are cold out of the fridge you can use your blender to gently heat it to about 60 degree fahrenheit. If it is too cold you run the risk of the gelatin setting up before it gets into your mold. You can also just let the ingredients come up to room temperature before you mix them by pulling them out of the fridge a couple of hours before you need them.
Add dissolved gelatin to your clabbered pumpkin spice mixture.
Pour into your prepared spring form pan and let sit in the fridge.
(if you are just making the gummies transfer into your molds and let set up in the fridge)
You did it!
To remove your dessert from your springform pan you may need to run a sharp knife around the edge to free the mixture from the side of the pan.
Temperature plays a big role in the eating experience of this dessert. Right out the fridge the gummy filling will be very firm and the pemmican crust will be hardened by the cold butter. Let it hang out at room temperature a while and the gummy mixture softens and the pemmican crust will get more tender.