#45: Turtle Pumpkin Pie

Okay, I caved. I decided to make ONE MORE pumpkin recipe before Thanksgiving and autumn came to a close. Although the calender says it's still fall, Christmas always starts for me the day after Thanksgiving, and my baking will reflect that. However, I knew I wanted to bake a pie of some sort for my dinner with the Bairds last Thursday. I love pumpkin pie, but knew that was completely overdone- luckily for me, I found the following recipe in my mother's Taste of Home magazine. No baking is actually involved in this dessert, but the results are pretty phenomenal. There wasn't a slice left, and I got MANY compliments. Another one for the future family cookbook, if you ask me!

#45: Turtle Pumpkin Pie (as found in Taste of Home magazine. Again, it was in another advertisement; this one states that the recipe can be found at dessert.com)

Ingredients:

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons caramel ice cream topping, divided
1 graham cracker pie crust, 6 ounces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons chopped pecans, divided
2 packages (3.4 ounces each) vanilla flavor instant pudding
1 cup cold milk
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 8 ounce tub of cool-whip, thawed, divided

Directions:

1. Pour 1/4 cup caramel topping onto crust; sprinkle with 1/2 cup nuts.

2. Beat pudding mix, milk, pumpkin, and spices with whisk until blended. Stir in 1 1/2 cups cool-whip, spoon into crust.
     - I used an electric mixer. I am a convert to the power of electricity in the kitchen.

3. Refrigerate for one hour. Top with remaining cool-whip, caramel topping, and nuts before serving.

That's it. Oh my goodness, so good though. I recently saw a recipe for a pumpkin dip that incorporated the pudding, milk, pumpkin, and spices in this recipe, and to be completely honest, I could eat that filling alone with a spoon. DELISH.

Unfortunately, I haven't learned from past mistakes. Stephen and I were running late to his parents' for dinner, so I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the pie prior to eating, and by the time I thought of grabbing a camera and taking a picture WHILE we were eating, it was already gone. So... here is a TERRIBLE cell phone picture of the picture the magazine provided. Classy.