I actually altered this recipe to make for a vegan friend. I replaced the butter for dairy free spread and used no-egg egg replacer. They turned out perfect and many vegan/vegetarian friends didn't believe they were vegan. Four pointers: 1. If using egg replacer, because this is a very soft dough I would recommend minimising the water you use to mix with the powder. 2. Also I refrigerated the dough overnight, but still kept portions in the freezer as I was rolling them to ensure they were ultra chilled and as firm as they could be. 3. Don't be put off by soft dough, they are perfect and worth the difficult handling, if you add too much extra flour...THEY WILL BE FLOURY! 4. Finally, I am impatient and clumsy so instead of using a rolling pin, I used a tortilla press and two sheets of baking paper to 'roll' the dough.

This was my first ever pumpkin pie, baked and tasted. The recipe was easy to follow, I used fresh pumpkin and a quick flaky short pastry for the case. I was surprised at how 'light' and almost fluffy it was. I was expecting a denser texture and I'm afraid I would have preferred that. Also I needed that extra sweetness and texture so I actually finished of each slice of pie with a brulee topping ie. I sprinkled a fine layer of sugar on top then briefly blasted it with the blow torch, YUM!

I used mascarpone instead of sour cream cream and it was utterly smooth. Everybody said it was better than any banana cake recipe they had ever had. I also sprinkled demerera sugar on top which gave it a wonderful sweet crunch on top.