Pecan Pie

It turns out, there are many different ways to make a pecan pie. Which is interesting when you figure that this is a pie made essentially of sugar. The recipe below is the one I used at Thanksgiving, and I chose it because it had the highest ranking and popularity on Allrecipes.com … which should mean something.

I made two main changes: I used upright maple syrup instead of corn syrup and skipped the cornstarch (that wasn’t really on purpose, I just didn’t have it). The result was a lot like the pie you would get from a bakery, just a tiny bit more sugary in texture (cornstarch will help this). And at Thanksgiving, it disappeared in minutes. I could barely salvage a piece to hide for my boyfriend!

[Prep: 15min / Cook: 1hr + a little cooling time]

– 1 3/4 cups white sugar
– 1/4 cup good ‘ole fashioned pancake/maple syrup
– 1/4 cup butter
– 1 Tbs water
– 3 eggs
– 1 tsp vanilla
– dash of salt
– dash of cinnamon
– 1 cup chopped pecans
– 1 unbaked pie shell (9in deep dish is ideal)

1. Preheat oven to 350F/175C.
2. In a saucepan over low heat, combine sugar, syrup, butter and water.
3. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.
4. In a large bowl, beat eggs until frothy/bubbly and gradually beat in syrup mixture.
5. Stir in salt, cinnamon, vanilla and pecans and pour entire mixture into pie shell.
6. Bake for 45min – 1hr until filling is set/solid.
7. Let cool a bit & ready to eat!

Recipe adapted from Pecan Pie on Allrecipes.com

Notes

• If you’re kind of silly like me, you might be thinking that the pecans should not be mixed in. They actually rise to the top as the pie bakes. If you would like to make a pretty pattern or something, you can place some on top, but it really isn’t necessary.
• If you’re not using cornstarch, the water is probably not needed and a few people have said that it would make the mixture too watery. But I didn’t experience this and I felt the water helped the syrup mixture liquify and boil.
• If you are going to use cornstarch, you should mix it with the water before adding it.
• Pie shells are sometimes a pain. I lightly pre-bake mine for about 5 minutes to ensure that the bottoms get cooked through in the end. To keep the edges of your crust from burning, cover the edges of your pie with aluminum foil.

Like I mentioned, there’s more than one way to make a pecan pie. Here are a few common changes/alterations:

• Substitute brown sugar and light corn syrup
• Substitute about 1/3 cups candy caramels or Rolos for the syrup and 1 cup of the sugar and milk for the water
• Use a combination of light brown sugar and white sugar for the sugar & syrup and milk + flour for the water + cornstarch
• Use chopped pecans for an extra-crunchy topping