Note: This recipe is part of our Harry Potter-themed dessert menu.

In the U.S., pasties are worn by ladies with names like Dita Von Teese and Cinnamon, but in the U.K., the word has an entirely different meaning.

There, pasties are wholesome, filling hand pies, crimped half-circles of pastry filled with all manner of good things, like beef, potato, carrot, onion, cheese and turnips. As of this year, Cornish pasties are receiving Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, meaning they will be as safeguarded as Champagne or Parma ham.

So, don’t screw around with them. They will CUT you.

But Pumpkin Pasties? Those seem to be strictly a wizarding treat conjured up by J.K. Rowling for the “Harry Potter” series. Which means we TOTALLY had to make them.

Pasties tend to be savory, but since everything else on the Hogwart Express food trolley is sweet, it seems like pumpkin pasties would be sweet, too. Sweet like pumpkin pie filling baked in a cinnamon-sugar pastry.

Last fall, Cooking Light featured a pumpkin pudding that was basically pumpkin pie filling baked in ramekins (without the crust), so that was the inspiration for spicing up the classic Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie filling and baking it in a casserole dish to get that concentrated pumpkin-pie flavor.

Then, I followed a process similar to last summer’s Cherry Fried Pie-making extravaganza – rolling out my pie dough, cutting it into circles and folding about a tablespoon of pumpkin filling into each circle, making dozens of little crimped half-moons.

The pasties baked up golden-brown, but they still needed an extra something-something. Some flash. So I threw together some cinnamon-sugar and rolled the warm pasties in it before I set them on my wire racks to cool.

A tablespoon of pumpkin filling doesn’t seem like much when you’re adding it to each dough circle, but it fills these pasties with spicy, creamy pumpkin goodness. Combine that with the snap of the freshly-baked pie dough and the sweet shimmer of all that cinnamon-sugar glitter, and you have some pretty irresistible pumpkin pasties.

Well worth a wizard’s love.

Back off, Cornwall!