Maple Pecan Pie

It's high time for pie time!

Pies are amazing. I especially love a good pumpkin pie, but honestly, just use the Libby's recipe, so there's not much to blog about. But I do have a very special Pecan Pie recipe that I have every intention of sharing.

Inspired originally by my dear friend, Liz, who is always so willing to accommodate those with special dietary restrictions. She made a pecan pie that used no processed sugars. Knowing that most of the recipes out there for Pecan Pie are 80% corn syrup does make them high on the processed sugars list. Our friend who had this restriction did say that Maple syrup was natural, therefore he would eat it. Bingo. With a little experimentation, she whipped up a batch of pecan pie tarts using only maple syrup in place of the corn syrup. I was skeptical at first, thinking they would taste like a gallon of maple syrup with some pecans thrown in, but I was sure wrong. Delicately sweet, chewy, and super nutty, they fulfilled everything you'd ever want from a pecan pie, and were actually not as painfully sweet as their corn syrup counterparts. Nor was the flavor overwhelmingly mapley. I mean, I like maple syrup, but I do have my limits on how much of it I can take in.

It did take me a couple years to make my own version, but well worth the wait. Adapted from a recipe on Simply Recipes.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs, slightly beaten

• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 
1 tbsp molasses

• 2 tbsp melted butter

• 2 tbsp flour

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 tsp bourbon or brandy
• 1 1/4 cups pecans (enough to cover bottom of pie tin)
• 1 Removable bottom tart pan lined with pastry crust
  

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spread pecans along the bottom of the pie shell. I tend to be meticulous about it and fan them out from the center, but then am disappointed when I pour the mix over the nuts and they proceed to be displaced chaotically. Just a warning, if you happen to be a perfectionist.
Mix the remaining ingredients and pour over pecans. The pecans will rise to the surface.
Bake at 375°F for 45-50 minutes until the filling has set.
Cool completely.
Cutting can be messy, because I keep the pecans whole, so you have to chop through the whole nut AND crust. You can of course chop them before you put them on the pie crust.

I use a trusted pie crust recipe that is basically 1/2 cup of butter to each cup of flour, with a tsp of salt and sugar tossed in. I keep some of the butter chunks pretty big too, which makes the crust super flaky (but reliable - how ironic!).

I hope you enjoy this treat as much as I do. It definitely competes with pumpkin pie in the ranks of my favorites. But apple is so good too.... ooh, Dutch Apple. mmm. I guess I have more posts to work on.