Puff Pastry with Gingered Pumpkin and Agave - Happy World Vegan Day!

Yesterday was Halloween. I've been so busy with life, that I barely even realized that it was October 31st. This really stinks because I love Halloween. I love costumes and I particularly love making fun and festive Halloween desserts. Yesterday afternoon, when I realized I wanted to do something for the holiday, I decided I was going to make a delicious pumpkin dessert and I was going to carve pumpkins with my fiance.

Unfortunately, it's actually pretty hard to find a pumpkin to carve on Halloween. Everyone already has their pumpkins and all the little patches have closed down. So we didn't get to carve pumpkins, but we did get this delicious dessert. Puff Pastry with Gingered Pumpkin and Agave. It's a little bit like a simplified napoleon, and it was very tasty. 

It's a much lighter dish than a lot of fall desserts. No offense to pumpkin spice cake, but it was refreshing.

You can make the filling in advance and just store it in the fridge. That actually helps it to stiffen up a little and makes it easier to serve.

Filling:
1 can of pumpkin puree (or you can use homemade puree)
4 tablespoons of agave
1 Ener-G egg (use a flax egg or another egg sub if you don't have Ener-G)
1/4 cup of vegan cream cheese
1/8 block of firm tofu, cut into cubes
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
a dash or two each of cloves, cinnamon and all spice
1 inch of fresh ginger root, peeled

Pastry:
1 sheet of frozen puff pastry (check ingredient, most are actually vegan!)
1 tablespoon of Earth Balance
1 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar

Topping:
Agave
Powdered Sugar (optional)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

To make the filling, just throw everything in your blender and set it on high until everything is really smooth. Make sure there's no chunks of ginger and tofu in there, because that would be weird.
Throw the filling in the fridge and let it sit there until you serve the dessert.

Defrost the puff pastry and cut along the folds. Then, cut each strip into 3 even pieces. You will have one oddball square of puff pastry when this is all done, but I'm sure you'll find a good use for it. Place each of the squares on a lightly greased cookie sheet

Melt the Earth Balance and mix in the cinnamon sugar. Brush the mixture over the top of each pastry square.

Bake the pastry for 10-15 minutes, until everything is golden and puffy.

To serve, place one square of puff pastry on a plate and top with a big spoonful of the pumpkin filling. Carefully put a second square of the pastry on top, creating a little sandwich. Then add a tiny spoonful of the filling on top.

Drizzle the whole thing with agave nectar and sift some powdered sugar over all of it.