Paleo Pumpkin Pie Coffee Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups  pumpkin puree
• 3  eggs
• 1/4 cup  honey
• 1/4 cup  maple syrup
• 2 Tbsp  ghee or  unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cup  chestnut flour
• 2 Tbsp  coconut flour, sifted
• 2 Tbsp  tapioca starch
• 1/2 tsp  salt
• 3/4 tsp  baking soda
• 1 tsp  ginger
• 3/4 tsp  nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp  cloves
• 3/4 tsp  allspice
• 3/4 tsp  cardamom
• 1 tsp  vanilla
• 3/4 cups chopped  walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease a  tube pan (or  bundt pan) with ghee, butter or coconut oil or use a  silicone pan.
2. Combine all ingredients except the chopped walnuts in a  blender and process until smooth (yes, it is that easy).
3. Fold in chopped nuts.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes (or until it passes the toothpick test).

Notes:  In a loaf pan, this recipe took 55 minutes to cook through.  You can also turn these into some pretty awesome muffins, which only take 20 minutes to bake.

Substitutions:  I often get asked about substitutions, and this is a challenging question to answer because, believe it or not, I don’t try every possible permutation of ingredients for every recipe.  This recipe works wonderfully (I’ve made it three times!).  I  think you could sub  almond flour for  chestnut flour, but you might need an extra quarter or half cup because it’s not as fine.  I  think you could substitute  arrowroot for  tapioca.  Yes, you  might be able to use an egg replacer in this recipe.  If you want to play with subbing  coconut flour, you’ll need at least 1/2 cup of whatever you choose.  I’m confident that you could use  lard or  palm shortening instead of  ghee or  butter.  I think  coconut oil or even  avocado oil would work too.  You can definitely sub  pumpkin pie spice or your favorite spice blend for the seasoning I list here.  You can omit the  walnuts or sub any chopped nut you like.