The Pecan Pie Topic

[bluesman13]

^^ hehe thanks

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I forgot to say that I've baked many pecan pies (it's my favorite too). Pecan pies are easy pies to make. You can make you own crust or use a store bought one. I always use corn syrup (either light or dark ), white and brown sugar (you can try all brown and taste the difference). And one other suggestion: I used to put the pecans on the pie after I poured in the filling. This is a mistake, I believe. If you put the pecans in the pie shell first and then pour the filling in, the filling will coat the pecans and they will get carmelized (and delicious).

Good luck!

[fawn]

thanks for that note. When i baked my pie, i place the nuts on top of the filling before pouring

[Chris Hennes]

And pecan season is upon us once again! Got to start it off right, and that means pecan pie... this week I used the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Pie and Pastry Bible. Her secrets, as mentioned above, are using Lyle's Golden Syrup instead of corn syrup, and using unrefined brown sugar (I used a dark Muscavado) in place of regular brown sugar. I amuse myself by arranging the pecans in concentric circles on the crust (the Cook's Illustrated Vodka Crust, in this case):

The other reason I like this recipe is the ratio of pecans to filling is high because it's really more of a tart than a pie. Here's what's left by the time I remembered to take a photo:

[Jaymes]

Here's mine:

Southern Bourbon-Pecan Pie

Put 1T of molasses and/or 2T of maple syrup into measuring cup

Add dark Karo Syrup (or Blue Ribbon Cane) to make 1 Cup

1/2 C white sugar

1/2 C dark brown sugar

1/3 C melted butter

3 T bourbon (or 2 t vanilla if you don't like bourbon)

4 eggs, beaten until mixed but not frothy

1 1/2 C pecan pieces

Combine syrups and sugars and mix well. Add butter and bourbon. Stir in eggs and combine well.

In bottom of pie shell scatter pecan pieces. Pour pie filling over. Bake 350º for 35-45 minutes. Pie is done when center no longer ripples in middle when moved. Cool well before serving.

This makes enough for a big pie (10"). If I haven't made a shell that large, I just pour the leftover filling into a smaller pan and bake one sans crust.

Pecan Pie season is almost upon us once again.

I was asked for my recipe. Here it is.

And, I'm wondering if anyone has tried a chocolate pecan pie?

I love chocolate and I love pecans and I'm wondering how they would do together in a pie.

[rotuts]

I make a very similar Pecan pie. I use Rum. re: chocolate: I sometimes add semi-sweet chocolate chips.

[Jaymes]

I make a very similar Pecan pie. I use Rum. re: chocolate: I sometimes add semi-sweet chocolate chips.

How many? And when?

And do you make any other adjustments in the ingredients?

[rotuts]

about 1/2 cup. in the 'mix' no other adjustment. just make sure the total volume does not exceed the volume of the pie shell.

the chocolate chips melt.

[stuartlikesstrudel]

I've never had an authentic American pecan pie, so I'm not sure exactly what's expected, but I can say that I made this last year and it was very very tasty. From memory I didn't include the chocolate chunks, but they would have been a welcome addition.

(it's also corn-syrup-free which wasn't a concern for me but could be handy for folks avoiding it )

http://www.chefeddy.com/2012/11/port-chocolate-pecan-tart/

[rotuts]

The chocolate addition, as tasty as that is might detract from the Pure Pecan Ness of the pie.

Try the Pure from high end carefully toasted pecans ( fresh Pecans Please @! ) first.

there are so many pies from this start ..............

[Jaymes]

The chocolate addition, as tasty as that is might detract from the Pure Pecan Ness of the pie.

Try the Pure from high end carefully toasted pecans ( fresh Pecans Please @! ) first.

there are so many pies from this start ..............

Right. A chocolate-pecan pie isn't really the place to start. I'm considering trying a chocolate-pecan pie this year, in addition to the regular pecan pie, and as a variation - a change of pace.

But it just ain't a celebration in the South without a Traditional Pecan Pie.

I've never had an authentic American pecan pie, so I'm not sure exactly what's expected, but I can say that I made this last year and it was very very tasty. From memory I didn't include the chocolate chunks, but they would have been a welcome addition.

(it's also corn-syrup-free which wasn't a concern for me but could be handy for folks avoiding it )

http://www.chefeddy.com/2012/11/port-chocolate-pecan-tart/

Regarding the "corn-syrup-free" thing...

Pecan pies traditionally call for regular ol' corn syrup; NOT the high-fructose corn syrup (a commercial product) that is the current bugaboo. In fact, I find it very odd that the recipe to which you linked, although clearly aimed at the home cook, mentions leaving out "high-fructose corn syrup," which, I personally, have never seen a home cook use. And I cannot imagine a recipe for a homemade pecan pie that would call for 1 cup high-fructose corn syrup. That makes me suspicious that (in this one instance, anyway) Eddy didn't know what he was talking about.

And, although I think Blue Ribbon or Steen's Cane Syrup is preferable, it's still all sugar.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Jaymes (log)

[Quesmoy]

I am wanting to make a honey pecan pie, and I have found a view different recipes. They all seem very similar, but some call for cooking the honey before adding the eggs and other ingredients and others just use the honey with no cooking. Does anyone know which would be better? Also, I was interested in adding the cranberries, as mentioned previously on this thread, and was wondering what would be a good ratio of Pecans to cranberries?

[andrewsmash]

Hey Jeannecake , great to know about your personal favorite recipe and yeah i had tried this recipe by your's method and really it works very well for me. Keep on sharing some others also.

[Cahoot]

Manager note: This post, and the two immediately following it, have been split from this topic to maintain focus.

 

On 2/29/2020 at 3:29 PM, teonzo said:

 

Your explanation is correct.
You need proper water/fat ratio and proper method to get a fine emulsion. Which does not mean your method is not correct: what matters is the final result, if during the preparation you face separated phases but at the end you get the proper result, then it's not a problem. See the Valrhona technique for ganaches, they willingly separate the emulsion in the middle stages.
You got a separation of phases because when you added the first quantity of butter there was too low water for emulsifying the fat in butter. You are starting with a caramel at 118°C, which means really few water (I don't have the tables here, I'm pretty sure in one of your books there are the tables of the water content in syrups at each °C). Then you add butter. When you mix this butter you are going to reverse its phases: it's going to change from a water-in-fat emulsion (butter) to a fat-in-water emulsion (caramel), so you need enough water to coat the fat droplets. Butter is around 82% fat and 15% water (at least here), the water in a 118°C caramel is really low, so you don't have enough water to produce a proper fat-in-water emulsion at that stage. Beware that the critical stage is the beginning: you need a high enough water-to-fat ratio to create a proper fat-in-water emulsion, then you can add more fat and maintain the emulsion (think about making mayonnaise). If the ratio is not in the correct window then the emulsion separates, you can get it back when you restore the correct ratio, which is what happens when you add the fruit puree. So you don't need to think you are making something wrong, it's just part of the method you are using.
When adding butter to caramel you are always going to reverse the butter phase. Which means that when you are reversing it, the butter emulsion separates, then it re-emulsifies with inverted phases (from water-in-fat to fat-in-water). During this stage the original butter emulsion is separating no matter what, that's the goal of the recipe/method. Most of the times it's happening at microscopic level, droplets separates and re-emulsify quick, so you don't see the separation stage because it's on a small scale (and you don't see if you did it properly, see the case when caramels separate after days). With the method you are using you see a separation at macroscopic scale in the middle stages, which is not a problem. The problem would be if you did not get a proper emulsion at the end of the method, which does not seem to be your case.

 

 

 

Teo

 

This was a very interesting read. I recently made this pecan pie recipe, which involves making a caramel and then adding butter directly to it after reaching the desired colour. My problem was that the caramel sauce separated as it cooled down. From the Teo's explanation, is the likely culprit because there's a too low water-to-fat ratio (since it was just a caramel with no cream, there's actually almost no water left), which made creating the fat-in-water emulsion more difficult? 

 

If that's the case, then I wonder why the recipe is formulated that way, instead of adding some cream before the butter which is much more common from what I've seen. The author of the recipe, Stella Parks, actually has a caramel sauce recipe that uses only cream, no butter, and she specifically wrote about how the shock of adding butter to a 350°F/180°C caramel can easily break the emulsion. 

 

But sticking with the original pecan pie recipe, what would be the best way to prevent the caramel from separating in the future? I see people mention using an immersion blender in this thread, but the recipe just calls for gently stirring with a rubber spatula. The butter is also supposed to be cold before adding, and the video of the pie being made shows it as a whole stick. Is this to keep it from melting too quickly? 

[Jim D.]

The recipe seems to foresee what you had happen:  

Quote

The butter will seem to pool out of the mixture, and you may notice a few specks of curdled egg, but that’s a-okay.

 

And the author states at the beginning:

 

Quote

I don’t know how anything so curdled, coagulated, lumpy, and broken can turn out so
delicious, but this pie manages to defy the odds.

 

You are dealing with adding eggs to a warm caramel, so I don't think you can expect it to behave as a plain caramel would, and I would anticipate all sorts of ugliness occurring. But how did your pie turn out? 

Edited July 5, 2020 by Jim D. (log)

[Cahoot]

4 hours ago, Jim D. said:

The recipe seems to foresee what you had happen:  

 

And the author states at the beginning:

 

 

You are dealing with adds eggs to a warm caramel, so I don't think you can expect it to behave as a plain caramel would, and I would anticipate all sorts of ugliness occurring. But how did your pie turn out? 

The main difference with what happened to me was that the caramel separated during the cooling down period before combining it with the eggs, so the issue was really separate from the eggs. I didn't notice any curdling after adding it to the eggs. 

 

The pie itself still turned out great. I guess the separation after adding the butter probably didn't make a difference since it was expected to anyway (whether during the cooling down process or after adding to eggs), but I was still curious on how to prevent the issue from coming up in the future in case I make a similar caramel with lots of butter and no cream.

[Smithy]

On 11/13/2004 at 11:01 AM, claire797 said:

Here's the one I've been using. It outstanding -- smooth, rich, and sweet but not overly sweet. It has a deep flavor from the toasted pecans and browned butter.

Pecan Pie

3/4 cup butter

2 cups light brown sugar, packed

3 eggs

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups pecan pieces

9 inch unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large skillet, toast pecans. Remove from skillet.

Add butter to skillet and heat over medium until browned. Reduce heat and stir in brown sugar. Let brown sugar melt a bit and turn off heat. Let cool for about 5 minutes.

In a separate bowl, mix eggs, salt and vanilla. Stir in butter/sugar mixture and pecans. Pour into unbaked pie shell Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

 

It's time to bump up this topic. I attended a holiday party recently that included a potluck dinner. I've been saving George Graham's Bourbon Pecan Pie recipe, from acadianatable.com, to try when we had holiday company. Then we didn't have any company! So I decided to make that for the potluck. In case there were teetotalers in the crowd, I also decided to try a non-bourbon version. (I should maybe explain that I have never, before last weekend, made a pecan pie of any sort. That was my mother's bailiwick.)

 

For the non-bourbon version I picked this one. I see that @claire797 hasn't been on this site since 2008, but if she gets notifications maybe she'll come back.

 

I wish I had photos of the finished pies. I don't. I do have a picture of the syrup/molasses/bourbon/etc. mixture in Graham's version, because I thought it so beautiful and intricate.

 

 

I also have pictures of the finished pies, packaged for transport. That was an operation in itself, but nothing tipped over in 40 miles of rough road, so it was a success.

 

 

Speaking of success, both pies were hits! The bourbon pecan pie had more takers than the standard pie, but there was very little left of either when the party broke up. I saved a piece of each for my husband so he could see what he'd missed. 

 

My own verdict: they were both good, but I marginally preferred the recipe I've quoted here. This wasn't as sweet as the other, and the recipe is slightly easier. I especially liked the result of toasting the pecans and browning the butter in this recipe. As @claire797 noted, they gave a depth of flavor to the finished pie that was missing in the bourbon pecan pie. My husband, who had never had (nor even heard of!) pecan pie before now, is a convert so I'm likely to be making more. Even if I go the bourbon pecan pie route next time, I'll include the browning and toasting step.

 

Incidentally, whipped cream is an excellent compliment to either pie!