Pecan Pie

By: Pete on 09:44:00

I've decided that February will be a focus on pastry, so started with a fairly simple recipe, albeit one I've not done before. I adapted the recipe from one from Mary Berry's book Simple Cakes, in order to make smaller pies.

My gut feeling is that I end up over-baking my shortcrust/sweetcrust. It's always a bit dark, and not crumbly enough. I'll do some investigation into this over the month, and see if I can improve how it goes.

 

Pecan Pie

• Preheat Oven to 200'C
• Prepare 4 12cm flan tins

Sweetcrust Pastry Ingredients

• 175g plain flour
• 20g icing sugar
• 75g chilled, diced butter
• 1 egg yolk
• 1tsp cold water

1) Sieve the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl

2) Rub in the butter until you get to the fine breadcrumb stage

3) Add in the egg yolk and water

4) Mix in with a pallette knife, then use your hands until a consistent dough is formed

5) Wrap in clingfilm, and chill for ½ an hour

Pecan Filling Ingredients

• 25g softened butter
• 175g light muscovado sugar
• 3 eggs
• 200ml maple syrup
• 1tsp vanilla extract

1) Using a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together

2) Add in the eggs one at a time, and mix thoroughly

3) Add in the maple syrup and vanilla , and continue to mix until smooth and consistent

Preparing the Flan Cases

 Ingredients

• 1 egg white (beaten)

1) Split the chilled dough into 4 even parts

2) Roll each chunk of dough to a circle about 15cm in diameter (I have a silicone rolling mat with guides)

3) Line the 4 flan tins with the pastry. To get the pastry into the corners, I use a ball of pastry, and push it in.

4) Prick the bottom of the pastry cases with a fork

5) Put a piece of baking paper, weighed down with baking balls/rice into each flan tin

6) Put the flan tins into the oven for 10 minutes

7) Remove from the oven, and remove the baking paper and baking balls

8) Return to the oven for 5 minutes, to allow the base to dry out

9) Remove from the oven, and immediately spread a small amount of beaten egg white onto the pastry base using a pastry brush (this helps seal the pastry, and prevents soggy bottoms)

Assembling the Pies

•  Reduce the oven temperature to 175'C

Ingredients

• 100g pecan nuts

1) Cover each flan base with pecan nuts

2) Pour in the filling to cover the nuts, but make sure you don't overfill and go over the sides

3) Place in the oven for 25-30 minutes, until the filling is set

4) Turn out onto a wire rack to cool