Pumpkin Pie in August

Some of you might hate me for rushing the end of these last precious few weeks of summer, but I have gotten the itch for Fall early this year! We had about a week and a 1/2 of fierce afternoon thunderstorms here a few weeks ago and the dark skies and blustering winds just did me in. I started craving pumpkin pie and it was only mid-August!

I got online one afternoon to browse recipes and found one from The Joy of Baking website that had an interesting twist. Regular crust. Regular pumpkin pie filling. But a layer of crushed gingersnap cookies and toasted pecans pressed into the raw crust before you add the filling. This got me all excited so when my sister and her family were out for a visit last week, we tried it out. Actually, to be more accurate, my sweet mama tried it out because I had to work. She made the pie during the day and then we all enjoyed a piece that night. As far as pumpkin pie goes, it was awesome, but none of us could taste the cookie/pecan layer. We started brainstorming and thought it might be fun to scratch the regular crust and go graham-cracker crust style, but use gingersnap cookies and crushed, toasted pecans in place of the traditional graham crackers.

We are currently having another lovely Colorado-can't-make-up-its-mind-weather week. So when the temperature dipped down into the 40's last night, inspiration swept over me and I whipped up a pumpkin pie with gingersnap and toasted pecan crust. Doesn't that sound wonderful? Except it didn't turn out like I hoped.... The crust was soft, almost soggy and I wanted it to be crunchy. I don't know how I would pull this off though because I think it would burn if you cooked it first and then had it in the oven for another hour while the pumpkin filling cooked...

So here is my next idea. Normal crust. Normal pumpkin pie filling. Some kind of crumb topping that includes the gingersnaps and toasted pecans. What do you think? Any other brilliant ideas of how the gingersnaps and pecans might be incorporated? In the end, I might decide that plain old pumpkin pie is best, but I am having fun playing with new ideas at the moment!

Feedback please!