There are certain books I like to reread at different times of the year. Autumn brings to mind the Little House series and Harry Potter, particularly the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when Harry is setting off for Hogwarts and having the time of his life making friends and enjoying lots of delicious foods, like these sweet vegan pumpkin pasties.
On the Hogwarts Express, Harry buys all kinds of treats from the witch selling snacks, including Pumpkin Pasties, which are like little pumpkin tarts. A recipe for Pumpkin Pasties is featured in The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, which is a fun read that also has good recipes.
Katherine made the Pumpkin Pasties recently, but she adapted them to be dairy free. She also made them a bit smaller than the original recipe states, to make the dough easier to handle and the finished pasties an easier size for small hands to hold–or pack in a lunch! Finally, she added a bit more seasoning to the filling to make the pasties even tastier.
The filling in these vegan pumpkin pasties is easy for young children to measure and mix all by themselves. They can also measure the crust ingredients into the food processor and process the dough with help. Once the dough is ready, kids can help roll it out and cut out the circles of dough, fill them, and seal them. Because the pasties are small, they make the dough easier to handle. Older children and teens can easily make the entire recipe by themselves. Since this recipe is vegan, there are no worries if helpers sneak a bite of filling!
Special Diet Notes: Vegan Pumpkin Pasties
By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, egg-free, nut-free, peanut-free, optionally soy-free, vegan, and vegetarian.
- 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cane sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoons dairy-free buttery spread or sticks, cut into chunks
- 3 tablespoons sustainable dairy-free shortening, chilled and cut into chunks
- 4 to 6 tablespoons ice water
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- ¼ cup cane sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon lemon juice
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Put the flour, sugar, and salt into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to combine.
- Scatter the margarine and shortening chunks on top of the flour mixture in the food processor. Pulse about 15 times, or until the mixture forms coarse crumbs.
- Transfer the mixture into a large mixing bowl.
- Sprinkle 4 tablespoons of cold water over the flour mixture. Toss the mixture together with a spatula until it begins to clump together. If the mixture is too dry, add more cold water one tablespoon at a time.
- Form the dough into a ball. Pat it into a disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least one hour.
- Put the pumpkin, sugar, lemon juice, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Mix well.
- Preheat your oven to 400ºF and optionally line your baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Roll out the chilled dough to ⅛-inch thickness on a floured surface.
- Use a small bowl or saucer as a pattern to cut out 10-14 (3-4.5 inch) circles (Ours were 4.5 inches.)
- Put a heaping 1½ to 2 tablespoons of filling in the center of each circle of dough. Divide any excess filling evenly among the circles of dough. Moisten the edges of a circle with water. Fold the dough over the filling. Crimp with a fork to seal the edges. Cut three slits in the top for steam vents. Repeat with the other circles.
- Bake the pasties on your baking sheet for 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.
- Let cool on the sheet for a minute, and then transfer the pumpkin pasties to a cooling rack.
- When cool, serve or store in an airtight container.
Key Pantry Supplies: Vegan Pumpkin Pasties
Pin these Vegan Pumpkin Pasties to Enjoy Later!
4 Comments
The recipe was great until I got to the part about putting it on an ungreased pan. The flavor is good, but I lost most of the pasties as they were stuck the the pan and broke apart.
I’m sorry the pasties stuck to your pan, J. Maybe try a different pan next time or line the pan with a Silpat.
There seems to be a problem with the numbers on the dough, because I just made this, and you can’t get 14 4-5 inch diameter circles cut out of the dough with the quantity of ingredients provided, rolled out at 1/8in thickness. I was just barely able to get 14 3-3.5 inch circles out of it, so I have a lot of filling left over.
Hi Sarah,
I’m sorry this didn’t work out for you. The ramekin we used to measure is just shy of 4.5 inches. Katherine was able to get 14 discs out of the dough using that bowl, but I changed the recipe to give more of a range of possible number of pasties depending on bowl size and/or dough thickness. Also, I would suggest putting the filling on all of the disks before crimping them, to make sure the filling ends up divided evenly among however many pasties you have. Hope this helps!