Pecan Pie
It’s Thanksgiving. In addition to pumpkin pie we usually have a pecan pie.
I’ve been using the same recipe since I was in college. It comes from an old notebook where I used to write down recipes I wanted to try. At the end of freshman year it turned out that I hadn’t used very many pages in my chemistry notebook. Being a frugal kind of person, I ripped out the few chemistry notes, and turned the notebook into my recipe book. That summer, I copied down recipes from my mother’s cookbooks that I wanted to use when I got back to school. I still have the notebook, but it’s looking a bit the worse for wear. The pages for a lot of our favorite recipes have fallen out, and the ink is fading. This is what the pecan pie recipe looks like. I think I had better handwriting back then too.
So it just seems like it’s about time to record it online as the paper is becoming unreadable. At some point I stopped making the pasty (which calls for an egg yolk in the dough) as it was very hard to work with. I just use a standard short crust blind baked shell. Here’s the recipe for the filling.
- pie shell
- 6 Tbsp butter - room temperature
- ⅔ cup dark brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- ⅓ cup light corn syrup
- 1 Tbsp dark rum
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½ tsp salt
- 2¼ cups pecans, 1½ cups coarsely chopped, ¾ cup for the top
- Blind bake the pie crust if it's not already done
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
- Cream the butter and sugar.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Add the corn syrup, rum, vanilla and salt. Beating until well combined.
- Stir in the chopped nuts
- Spoon the mixture into the pie shell. If you're being a bit lazy, just sprinkle the rest of the nuts on the top. If you want it to look perfect, arrange the pecan halves in concentric circles until the pie is covered.
- Bake on the center rack about 40 minutes, until filling is firm.
- Cool, and then serve with whipped cream