The best pumpkin pie I ever made is a surprisingly easy recipe from Bobby Flay

• I previously tried three celebrity chefs' recipes for pumpkin pie and Bobby Flay's was my favorite.
• The graham-cracker crust wasn't perfect, but the flavorful whipped cream made this dish.

When put head to head with other celebrity chefs' takes on the seasonal dessert, Bobby Flay's "Throwdown Pumpkin Pie" blew me away with its graham-cracker crust, flavorful filling, and bourbon-maple whipped cream.

Read on to find out how to make this dessert and my final thoughts.

The ingredients were pretty standard, except the surprise addition of bourbon-maple whipped cream

Flay's recipe is a no-fuss option for people who love a homemade dessert but don't want to spend a full day making a flaky pie crust, as it opts for a delicious graham-cracker base instead.

The recipe also skips roasting and scraping pumpkins in favor of canned puree combined with tasty additions like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, brown sugar, cream, and fresh vanilla-bean seeds.

But this dish wouldn't be complete without the flavorful whipped cream made with just heavy whipping cream, maple syrup, vanilla-bean seeds, and bourbon. The recipe calls for Grade B maple syrup, but that's no longer an existing classification, so I used a dark Grade A one instead.

I measured out all of the ingredients and organized them in groups for the crust, filling, and whipped cream, which made following this recipe quite simple.

The crust mostly uses graham crackers

Although the recipe calls for a food processor, I didn't have one when I first made this dish but was able to use a mallet to crush the graham crackers.

I then combined the crumbs with butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a small blender.

I firmly pressed the graham-cracker mixture into a pie tin and baked the crust for 10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit to let it set.

Making the filling was a simple process

Once the pie crust had been prebaked, I set the oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit and got to work on the filling.

I started by whisking the eggs and sugar together before adding in the pumpkin, cream, salt, vanilla, spices, and sugars.

Once I had the creamy, orange filling ready to go, I strained it and poured the result into the cooled pie crust.

I had far more filling than I needed for one pie, so I froze the rest for future desserts.

While the pie baked, I threw together the whipped cream

The pie baked for about an hour and a half, and toward the end of that time, I combined heavy whipping cream, bourbon, vanilla-bean seeds, and maple syrup in a stand mixer to make the whipped cream.

Once the pie cooled, I plated a slice with some whipped cream on the side, though my subsequent servings featured heaps of it on top.

The pie and whipped cream went perfectly together

There's hardly a greater combination than pumpkin pie and whipped cream.

The whipped cream balanced the pumpkin flavor and spices and was tasty on its own thanks to the maple syrup, bourbon, and vanilla.

The pie itself had a great texture. Although the bottom was slightly too soggy, it still held together well. Plus the dish maintained a good height and sported crispy edges.

I wish the crust was just as tasty as the filling and whipped cream, though. In the future, I plan to add more sugar and cinnamon to the graham-cracker mix to boost the flavor.

All in all, this dessert turned out delicious and was surprisingly easy for a homemade pie.