I can’t get over this recipe!! (Thank you Nom Nom Paleo, I heart you!) I love love love pumpkin and this is like heaven. Be warned, this might take you out of your baking element as there are some tricky elements to it. BUT! If you nail it, these turn into a dessert that everyone will be talking about like: “This is paleo??” and “Holy shit, this is awesome!”. Soon you are having dinner parties all the time and you become a local custard celebrity. You were warned!

Alright to the ingredients:

1/2 cup of coconut flakes

1 1/4 cup of coconut milk (at room temperature)

4 large pasteurized eggs (at room temperature)

1/2 cup of grade B maple syrup

3/4 cup of canned pumpkin puree

1 tsp of ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

1/2 tsp of kosher salt

Boiled water

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and spread the coconut flakes on a baking sheets. Honestly, 1/2 cup is too much, I would cut it in half. I just didn’t need that much at the end, and you want to custard to speak for itself and have to coconut there as a garnish, not a hat. So the coconut goes in the over for about 5 minutes. You want to keep an eye on this, cause it will brown very quickly. So turn on your oven light and watch. I promise it’s more exciting than watching paint dry. Cause shit happens. Like coconut turning brown.

Once brown, take to coconut out of the oven and turn up the heat in the over to 325 degrees and put the pan to the side. Get a 9″ x 13″ glass and put a towel on the bottom of it. This towel will get wet later, so choose one you are ok with being cooked in the oven. Also, I didn’t have a pan this size, so I used 2 smaller ones. It all worked out.

Next, grab a small pan and put the coconut milk in it. Turn your burner on 3 or 4 (or low) and warm the milk up until it is steaming but not boiling. I cannot stress this enough. Do not boil the milk!! While the milk is slowly warming up, crack the eggs into a bowl and add the maple syrup and whisk!

Once the milk is steaming, take it over to your egg/maple mixture and slooooowly add the coconut milk. You add the milk too fast and you will cook the raw egg and have scrambled eggs with maple. This is the trickiest part of this entire operation, do not screw this up!! To be anal, I took the measuring cup I used for the maple syrup and scooped the milk into it and then slowly added that amount to the egg mixture. It worked like a charm! No scrambled eggs in my kitchen today! I was also whisking as I added the milk. I didn’t want there to be any opportunity for those eggs to get out of line.

Next, once all the milk is in the mixture, you add the remaining ingredients and whisk some more. It starts smelling like heaven! I would like to add that I added less salt. I don’t like a lot of salt in my baking. Once everything is whisked together, you divide it up into ramekins and then you place said ramekins into the towel-lined baking dish. Now grab that boiling water and pour it caaaarefully into the glass baking dish, so as to fill it halfway but not get any of that water into the ramekins. This part made my heart race. I did not want to ruin my masterpieces!

Next, put everything in the over and bake for 30 to 45 minutes. I set the time on my over to 35 minutes and when it went off they were perfection!! To tell if they are done, you put a knife into the top and it has to come out clean. Once done, cool these babies for an our, put the coconut you toasted earlier on top and enjoy!! Or refrigerate! And if you refrigerate all of them without trying one, you are a fool! Eat one. You will thank me. And so your your taste buds. I mean seriously, if the baker can’t quality control something, who can??

Look at em!! SO DELIGHTFUL.

Up close. Looking like it wants to be eaten. I obliged.