pecan pie

recipe notes
step-by-step method
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Don’t you hate when you see recipes with titles like “The Best-Ever Chocolate Cake” or “The World’s Absolute Best Amazing Great Cookie” and the author gushes how they’ve stumbled upon the last recipe for a brownie you’ll ever need. Really? The best ev-er. As in, of all time in the history and conceivable future of baked goods to be made? False.

First of all, these titles unfairly build our hopes up, which we know can never be met after a promise like “best ever”. Secondly, and I know this for a fact, there is no single item of food that absolutely everyone is going to love. I’ve been searching for it my entire career and it’s a fool’s errand. That being said, here’s my “Best-Ever” Pecan Pie recipe*.

I reeeally love pecan pie. It is so amazingly tooth-numbingly sweet and rich but in all the right ways. It has been my top pie pick for as long as I can remember sitting at a Thanksgiving table. I came by this recipe by way of an old girlfriend. Her family was long-time Kansas City blood and her mom was an amazing cook. She had a recipe from a family housekeeper (Dolores) that went way back, and she would make it for me when I had Thanksgiving with them. I could literally eat a whole pie on my own within the span of a day (somewhere a heart surgeon just got their wings). I tweaked it ever so slightly, slapped on my pie dough recipe, and the result is a pecan pie I truly feel – without bias – is the best I’ve ever had**.

*Legal Diclaimer – The author of this blog post refers to “best-ever” by which to say: “the best he’s ever personally had, prescribing to his specific pecan pie tastes and memories and with no guarantee that such enjoyment will be shared by anyone else at all. In no way is this recipe making claim that this pecan pie is the messiah of all pies in the universe. Additionally, no further claim is being made that by “best-ever” the author means to say that you will need to give up on life after tasting it because you will have glimpsed sugar-induced nirvana and nothing else will ever be the same. The author would never say that. It is a pretty damn good pie though so just to cover your bases you should probably make it and eat it to find out.
**For realsies.

recipe notes

The filling for your pecan pie couldn’t be simpler, it’s basically combine and mix, but there are a few nuances to get just what you might be looking for in the pie you make at home.

As with basically all of my pies, I par bake my pie crust. Pecan pie filling is quite an insulator of heat and if you don’t par bake the crust you’ll likely end up with a soggy bottom. No one likes a soggy bottom.

The biggest difference maker in preference is the quantity and treatment of the pecans. Personally, I prefer a heavier amount of filling in relation to pecans, so if you like more pecans you’ll want to increase the quantity. I also usually buy chopped pecan pieces because they’re cheaper. If you like that whole pecan look on the top of your pie, I’d still encourage you to use chopped pieces for the filling of the pie and then buy full pecan halves to lay on top of the filled pie before baking. Another option is to lightly toast or even candy the pecans before adding them to the filling. I almost always do this to give a little more crunch and texture variation.

Other variations on this filling include adding some spice, swapping out some or all of the dark corn syrup for molasses or maple syrup (or just light corn syrup) and of course, adding some booze. Bourbon is a pretty popular choice for a pecan pie. I like drinking it when making, eating or thinking about pie, but if you want to add it to your filling you’ll have to put a decent amount in to maintain some bourbon flavor after baking. Because of that, I’d add an extra egg or two to help offset the liquid being added that will have to be stabilized.

pecan pie

pie dough

Rather than rehashing the past here, follow this link to my post on pie dough. Roll out your dough to about 1/8″/3mm thick and par bake at 350F/176C for around 10min. If you’d like to see that process, you can zip on over to my apple pie post! My recipe for pie dough will still be below in the recipe card.

pie filling

300g light corn syrup
300g dark corn syrup
280g sugar
1g salt
114g butter unsalted
24g lemon juice
300g whole egg
10g vanilla
240g pecans chopped

Melt your butter until it’s fluid but not hot, and hold on to it to add later.

Combine the sugar,  salt, vanilla, lemon juice, dark corn syrup and light corn syrup and whisk well until it’s all combined.

Next add the whole egg and whisk that until well combined.

Last, add you melted butter and….yes…whisk that until well combined.

At this point I like to hand blend the mixture to really emulsify it. If you don’t have a hand blender you can skip this step. If you don’t have a hand blender but feel like not emulsifying the mix is going to keep you up at night you and try emulsifying in a food processor or blender.

Add your pecans to your par baked pie shell and pour your filling over it.

Because pecan pie can take awhile to bake and because our pie dough is par baked, I cover the pie with tin foil to insulate some heat and keep the edge of the pie crust from burning. Punch a small hole in the foil to allow steam to escape.

Bake the pie at 330F/165C until the pie is well set, about 45min-1hr.

It’s at this point that I try to control myself not to eat the whole thing.

Cheers  – Chef Scott

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pecan pie

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Ingredients

pie dough

• 250 g pastry flour
• 5 g sugar
• 5 g salt
• 225 g butter unsalted
• 60 g water

pecan pie filling

• 300 g light corn syrup
• 300 g dark corn syrup
• 280 g sugar
• 114 g butter unsalted
• 1 g salt
• 24 g lemon juice
• 300 g whole eggs
• 10 g vanilla extract
• 240 g pecans chopped

Servings:

Units:MetricUS Imperial

Instructions

pie dough

1. Cut the butter into 1/2" cubes and reserve in the freezer.
2. Combine the pastry flour, salt and sugar and mix until homogenized in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
3. Add the cold butter to the dry ingredients and mix until the butter is mostly incorporated into the dry ingredients, with large pads of butter still intact.
4. Add the cold water and mix until the dough is just combined. Finish by hand if needed.
5. For best results, let the dough rest for 1hr minimum and up to 24hrs.
6. Roll the chilled pie dough out to 1/8"/ 3mm thickness and line the pie tin.
7. Once the pie tin is lined, strike any excess pie dough off of the rim with a paring knife, slicing away from the tin.
8. Let the dough rest, uncovered, in the fridge for at least an hour, up to overnight.
9. Cover the lined pie shell with cheesecloth and fill with baking beans or rice. Par bake the pie dough at 350F/176C for 10min.

pecan pie filling

1. Melt the butter until liquified but not hot.
2. Combine the sugar, salt, vanilla, lemon juice, dark corn syrup and light corn syrup and whisk well until it is combined.
3. Add the whole egg and whisk until well combined.
4. Add the melted butter and whisk until well combined. If available, use a hand blender to fully emulsify the mixture.
5. Add pecan pieces to the par baked pie shell.
6. Pour the pie filling over the the pecans to fill the shell. Cover the top of the pie with tin foil, punching a small hole in the center of the foil.
7. Bake: 330F/165C for 45min. to 1hr.

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