(mini pecan pie)
This year my husband requested a pecan pie for his birthday & since I'd give him my liver if he wanted it, a pecan pie was a pretty easy order to fill. In fact, I actually made him two pies, the way you put an extra candle on the cake for good luck in the coming year.
I used a recipe I've adapted from Guy Fieri. In this case, I halved the ingredients you'd normally use for a full pie and used my trusty ramekins.
Pecan pies, by their very nature, can put even people with a raging sweet tooth and a healthy pancreas into a sugar coma. But this recipe, with its inclusion of chopped pecans throughout the traditional filling, is a little more balanced and substantial than the usual pecan-sugar pie. Plus, making mini-pies makes for a less overwhelming caloric spectacle, particularly if you aren't having company and there's only two of you doing the pie eating.
Crust: You start off making the crust, which, in this case, requires only 1 cup of flour, .5 tablespoons of sugar, .5 cup of cold butter (or margarine), and a pinch of salt.
You mix this all up in a bowl with your fingers until it starts to adhere to itself. Then you add cold water little by little. Lately, I've taken to using cold vodka because the alcohol evaporates during the baking process and leaves the crust flaky and crispy; at least that's the theory and it seems to be borne out in practice. Add the water or vodka sparingly, just until the dough comes together in a ball, wrap it in cellophane, and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
Filling: In the meantime, mix .5 cup of corn syrup, .5 cup of light brown sugar, .25 teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoons of melted butter, and one teaspoon of vanilla extract in a bowl. Beat an egg and mix that in last.
Set that bowl aside.
Crust, again: When your dough is properly chilled, roll it out and divide. Press it into the bottom of your two ramekins. Bake the crust at 350 degrees for about ten minutes until it's golden brown.
Now chop up enough pecans to sprinkle over the bottom of the pie crust, about a quarter of a cup. (You can either have toasted the pecans or not—it's your choice). Set aside.
Filling, again: Stir another quarter cup of chopped pecans into the pie mixture that's still waiting patiently over there in the bowl. Pour the filling into the ramekins.
Top of pie: Use whole pecans to decorate the top of the pie.
Bake: Pop the pie(s) into the oven that you've preheated to 375 degrees. Ordinarily you'd bake for 40 to 50 minutes if this were a full-sized pie, and you more or less do the same for the mini-version, but I'd check it closer to the 35 minute mark just to be on the safe side. You don't want to burn it. Nothing tastes more foul than burnt sugar. Well, I guess burnt rubber would taste more foul and a lot of other things, too, but you get my drift. Maybe it's better to say nothing so ordinarily sweet tastes so foul burnt as sugar.
Anyway...
If it's your husband's birthday, stick a candle in the finished pie, light it, call him into the room and sit on his lap singing happy birthday while you fondle his crotch. Let him blow out the candle. Hopefully both your wishes are the same and they both come true. Probably they will. For one thing, you still have your liver.
I used a recipe I've adapted from Guy Fieri. In this case, I halved the ingredients you'd normally use for a full pie and used my trusty ramekins.
Pecan pies, by their very nature, can put even people with a raging sweet tooth and a healthy pancreas into a sugar coma. But this recipe, with its inclusion of chopped pecans throughout the traditional filling, is a little more balanced and substantial than the usual pecan-sugar pie. Plus, making mini-pies makes for a less overwhelming caloric spectacle, particularly if you aren't having company and there's only two of you doing the pie eating.
Crust: You start off making the crust, which, in this case, requires only 1 cup of flour, .5 tablespoons of sugar, .5 cup of cold butter (or margarine), and a pinch of salt.
You mix this all up in a bowl with your fingers until it starts to adhere to itself. Then you add cold water little by little. Lately, I've taken to using cold vodka because the alcohol evaporates during the baking process and leaves the crust flaky and crispy; at least that's the theory and it seems to be borne out in practice. Add the water or vodka sparingly, just until the dough comes together in a ball, wrap it in cellophane, and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
Filling: In the meantime, mix .5 cup of corn syrup, .5 cup of light brown sugar, .25 teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoons of melted butter, and one teaspoon of vanilla extract in a bowl. Beat an egg and mix that in last.
Set that bowl aside.
Crust, again: When your dough is properly chilled, roll it out and divide. Press it into the bottom of your two ramekins. Bake the crust at 350 degrees for about ten minutes until it's golden brown.
Now chop up enough pecans to sprinkle over the bottom of the pie crust, about a quarter of a cup. (You can either have toasted the pecans or not—it's your choice). Set aside.
Filling, again: Stir another quarter cup of chopped pecans into the pie mixture that's still waiting patiently over there in the bowl. Pour the filling into the ramekins.
Top of pie: Use whole pecans to decorate the top of the pie.
Bake: Pop the pie(s) into the oven that you've preheated to 375 degrees. Ordinarily you'd bake for 40 to 50 minutes if this were a full-sized pie, and you more or less do the same for the mini-version, but I'd check it closer to the 35 minute mark just to be on the safe side. You don't want to burn it. Nothing tastes more foul than burnt sugar. Well, I guess burnt rubber would taste more foul and a lot of other things, too, but you get my drift. Maybe it's better to say nothing so ordinarily sweet tastes so foul burnt as sugar.
Anyway...
If it's your husband's birthday, stick a candle in the finished pie, light it, call him into the room and sit on his lap singing happy birthday while you fondle his crotch. Let him blow out the candle. Hopefully both your wishes are the same and they both come true. Probably they will. For one thing, you still have your liver.
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