Happy Thanksgiving! Pecan Pie

 

I've never made a pecan pie.  It's not a pie I've ever especially liked, finding it far too sweet and cloying, even though there are so many recipes out there that promise they're not too sweet.  And then there are recipes that include chocolate, and recipes that include bourbon, all of which sound delicious.  So I've been tempted, but have never tried until now.  For some reason, I wanted pecan pie with my Thanksgiving dinner.

I'm still working on perfecting my half-size pie technique; I got pretty close with this one.  The original recipe is for a 9.5-inch pie.  (He doesn't specify deep-dish, but it looked about 1.5-inches deep.)  I cut the quantities in half and baked it in a 7¾-inch fairly shallow pie pan from Baker's Square.  Here's what I used:

pre-baked* 7 to 8-inch pie crust
1 cup pecan halves, toasted
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 tablespoon bourbon (optional)
1 tablespoon milk heavy cream
1½ tablespoons flour
1½ large eggs

In a small pan over moderate heat, melt the butter, then add the brown sugar, white sugar, corn syrup, salt, vanilla, cream, and flour. Whisk to combine then allow to cook until it comes to a full boil, which should take only a minute or two. Immediately remove from the heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs. Slowly add about 1/2 cup of the syrup, a little at a time, into the eggs, whisking constantly. The rest of the syrup can be added more quickly, still whisking constantly. When thoroughly combined, pour over the pecans in the pie crust. Make sure none of the pecans are still dry on any surface. Bake at 350 F. for about 35 minutes, or until crisp on top and the filling is set. 

*I'm still not convinced that pre-baking a pie crust is necessary, or even a good thing, even for a liquid filling.  Typically, I never even par-bake the crust for pumpkin pie, and it's fine.  (I'm using "pre-baked" for a crust that is fully baked, which takes at least 20 minutes, while "par-baked" is one that's been baked for only about 10 minutes prior to filling.)  Who's really noticing whether the bottom of the crust is "flaky"?!  I think it's one of those ego things more than anything else.  As long as the crust isn't sodden and mushy, it's fine.  But every time I pre-bake a crust fully, it's tough and really difficult to cut through, and crunchy instead of crisp.  And no matter how much I freeze the shell before baking, or how well I've filled it with pie weights, I still end up with a misshapen, shrunken crust, no matter how long it's been in the oven.  So for now, I'm still not a fan, but I keep trying.  I should explore more the length of time the crust is baked prior to filling, as that can vary widely.  (This pumpkin pie called for par-baking the crust for only 12 minutes, while this coconut pie called for a crust that pre-baked for 25 minutes.)

Another consideration is the egg wash.  I pre-baked this crust, but I didn't use pie weights.  Instead, I docked the dough.  But then I gave the crust a thorough eggwhite wash, which stupidly fully sealed all the docking.  I intentionally filled the holes because I didn't want any pie filling to seep through, but that defeated the whole point of docking the dough.  NOTE:  I should have docked it, baked it, egg-washed it, then put it back into the oven just long enough to set the egg wash.  A test for another time.

This recipe was challenging because you have to follow the video on YouTube in order to get the directions.  (Only the ingredient list is given on his blog.)  Consequently, I messed up and cooked the syrup for too long, which made it very thick.  This might have affected the baking time, causing the pie to be set sooner than it otherwise would.  (It was still quite wobbly at 25 minutes, so I gave it another 10.  The full recipe calls for 40-45 minutes.)  It didn't adversely affect the finished product, though, other than it was pretty sticky.  And to that end, I probably could get away with using 2 whole eggs instead of fussing with a half egg.  (I used one extra large egg, plus the leftover egg white from the pastry wash and half of that egg yolk.)  Or would that make it too firm?

I questioned whether that little bit of bourbon really affected the flavor.  I didn't think so on the first two pieces, but I think I detected it when I was having a small piece early one morning.  (Per my reaction to the bourbon cream for these brown butter pumpkin pancakes, apparently I am especially sensitive to bourbon first thing in the morning.  Imagine that.)

Conclusion:  Utterly delicious.  Still a bit sweet (and perhaps a bit too salty), but okay in small servings.  (I found I enjoyed it less and less after about 5 or 6 bites.)  Some people successfully reduced the sugar, and one person recommended substituting some of the sugar for grade B maple syrup, which he deemed less sweet than sugar.  I also wonder how browned butter would fair.  That would be worth trying.  I would make this again.

Recipe:  Pecan Pie via Food Wishes

Baked pumpkin two ways

 

Two different pumpkin recipes, one savory, one sweet.

Spicy Pumpkin and Greens

2 2- to 3-pound sugar pumpkins

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 small onion, diced

1 plum tomato, diced

1 Scotch bonnet chile pepper, seeded and finely chopped

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme (or about 1/2 teaspoon dried)

1 clove garlic, chopped

4 scallions, chopped

1 pound frozen, chopped, sturdy greens, thawed (or about 3 bunches fresh; I used kale)

1¼ teaspoons coarse kosher salt

1 cup evaporated milk

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

4 tablespoons breadcrumbs (preferably panko)

1½ cups shredded sharp white cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Slice off the top 1½ inches of the pumpkins and discard. Scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp. Have onion, tomato, chile, thyme, and collards ready to go.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, tomato, chile pepper, thyme and garlic and cook, stirring, until the onion is slightly tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the scallions and collard greens, add salt and cook, stirring, until the greens are slightly tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in the evaporated milk and nutmeg and bring to a gentle boil. Stir in 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs, the cheddar cheese and the remaining 2 tablespoons butter and cook, stirring, until the cheese melts and the mixture thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Put the pumpkins in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and fill evenly with the collard greens mixture.

Toss the remaining 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs with the Parmesan. Sprinkle over the filling. Add 1 inch of boiling water to the baking dish. Cover loosely with foil and bake until the pumpkins are tender, about 1 hour, 15 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking until browned and bubbly on top, about 30 more minutes. Let cool 5 minutes, then scrape the pumpkin flesh and serve with the collards.

I made only one pumpkin and the large skillet was too large, drying out my ingredients. If making only one pumpkin, use a medium skillet. I used a large bunch of fresh, curly kale and the filling didn't even fill a small pumpkin. (I don't know the weight.)  I was going to use a roasted Poblano chile, but it was bitter and not hot at all, so I used two red jalapeños. Careful with the salt if using fine salt.

Apple-Pumpkin Brown Betty

1 2-to-3-pound sugar pumpkin

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup cubed bread (preferably from a baguette)

2 Gala apples, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup golden raisins

1 tablespoon rum (optional)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

kosher salt

maple syrup, for drizzling

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Slice off and reserve the top 1½ inches of the pumpkin. Scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the bread and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 4 minutes; transfer to a bowl. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon butter, apples, brown sugar and raisins to the skillet and cook until the apples are crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Stir in the rum, vanilla, cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Return the bread to the skillet.

Put the pumpkin in a small baking dish and fill the pumpkin with the apple mixture. Cover with the pumpkin top and add 1 inch of boiling water to the baking dish. Cover loosely with foil and bake until the pumpkin is tender, 2-2½ hours. Remove the foil and pumpkin top and return the stuffed pumpkin to the oven. Bake until the filling is lightly browned, about 10 more minutes. Transfer to a serving plate and drizzle with maple syrup. To serve, scrape the pumpkin flesh and stir into the apple mixture.

The Gala apple I bought was tasteless.  (I planned on baking only one pumpkin and therefore thought I was halving the recipe, so I bought only one apple.)  Fortunately, I also had an Envy, which was crisp and delicious, so I added that.  I used a sourdough loaf, quite stale and not very dense, and threw in some dried, natural cranberries.  I'm intrigued by the substitution of half an onion for half an apple, as one commenter did.  Cheddar cheese might be a really good addition, though.

I messed up the baking a bit because I put the pumpkin top back on the savory pumpkin and left it off the sweet one.  It was supposed to be the other way around.  So the apples dried out a bit, and the cheese and bread crumbs didn't get toasty.  (It was a little challenging following both these recipes at once.) 

Note:  the sweet pumpkin wasn't super sweet and could be served as a side dish or a light dessert as is.  For a standard dessert, it needs ice cream or whipped cream at minimum.

Conclusion:  These recipes were good, but it comes down to baking inside a pumpkin is a PITA.  Trying to scoop out proportionate amounts of filling and pumpkin flesh is pretty much impossible, and very messy.  You can't help but get more filling at first, and meanwhile the pumpkin skin is falling apart, and the whole thing is steaming hot while you're trying to handle it.  This is a cute idea in theory, but the reality is ridiculous.  Both of these were worth making again, but I'll have to find another method. 

Recipes:  Spicy Pumpkin and Collards and Apple-Pumpkin Brown Betty, both via Food Network

November ABC challenge: pumpkin buns

This is the Avid Baker's Challenge second foray into pumpkin buns.  The first, a King Arthur recipe, were excellent and set the bar high.

I've had trouble with this source's recipes, particularly with getting the right texture, and this one was no exception.  I'll give them a pass on this one, though, because I substituted half of the flour for whole wheat.  And since I didn't have bread flour handy, I used AP flour and threw in some high gluten flour.  I also cut the recipe in half.

Here's what I used.  Deviations from half the recipe are shown in italics and strikeout.  Yield 6 buns:

500 120g bread whole wheat flour 
130g all-purpose flour
2 heaping tablespoons high gluten flour
5g instant yeast
4 5g salt
100g pumpkin puree 
1/2 egg (medium)
25 g honey
1/2 tsp pumpkin spice (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves)
35g+ lukewarm water
25g unsalted butter, softened
water and raw cane granulated sugar to coat the buns (or coat with egg wash)
6 pecan pieces to be used as stalks on your pumpkins after baking

Ingredients should be at warm room temperature, including the pumpkin puree.  Add all the ingredients except the water and butter into a large bowl and blend together.  Add 3/4 of the water and see how the dough comes together, adding more water as necessary.  (I added at least twice the amount called for.)  Knead for 10 minutes, then add the softened butter in 3 stages and knead for another 5 minutes until dough is slightly sticky and silky smooth.  (When you touch it with your finger it should stick to the dough for just a second, like it would to a post-it note.)

Shape the dough into a ball, put it in a greased bowl, cover and leave to rest for 60 minutes in a warm place (24°C / 75°F).  Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces and shape them into balls. Cover with floured clingfilm and leave to rest for 15 minutes.  With a knife or dough cutter, make eight cuts from the edge towards the center, about 1.5" long, dividing the bun into eight segments. Make a hole in the center with your index finger, all the way down to the bottom, so it will not disappear during proofing and baking.  Place the buns on a greased baking tray; brush each bun with water and sprinkle with the cane sugar.  Cover and leave to proof for at least 90 minutes in a warm place.  Bake at 355°F for 15 minutes until orange-golden. (If you think the buns have the right color, you can reduce the temperature to 300°F after 8 to 10 minutes, so they will not get too dark.)  Cool slightly before adding the pecan segments.  Serve with the salted maple butter.

Salted maple butter
50g salted butter 
17g maple syrup

Add the maple syrup to softened butter and beat or stir into a smooth consistency. Rechill until firm but not hard, or shape into a log and wrap tightly.

Conclusion: Well, I've had better, but I'm not sure the recipe was entirely at fault.  These were rather dense, so I guess I didn't let them rise long enough.  I think using half whole wheat flour would normally work fine, but the flour I used wasn't the freshest and the buns had a slightly bitter taste.  But I think they could have used a stronger pumpkin flavor, and more spice.  (But again, the spices weren't very fresh either.  I used more to compensate, but like flour, spices get bitter with age and lose their sweetness.)  I had questioned brushing them with water, especially before rising, and as expected they had a weird dryness on top from the "pastiness", like I'd spread them with a flour/water paste.  Not sure why they didn't recommend milk.

Recipe:  Pumpkin Buns with Salted Maple Butter via Weekend Bakery

Cafe Pasqual's Pumpkin Pie... sort of

(Update:  a closer attempt at the restaurant's pie can be found here.)

 

Pumpkin pie is one of my favorite foods in the world, especially cold for breakfast.  It is not uncommon for me to consume a whole pie by myself in two days.  For this reason, though, I tend to cut back on the sugar and the cream -- when you're putting away that much pie, you need to take it down a notch.

My all time favorite pumpkin pie was from New Frontiers, a small, organic grocery store.  When they were purchased by Whole Foods, we were told WF would keep the old recipes.  And they did, for a while.  But when I went the next Thanksgiving to get a slice of this seasonal pie, it wasn't available.  And now, I guess, that recipe is lost forever.

My second favorite pumpkin pie is from Cafe Pasqual's in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but a slice of that will set you back $12.

The two are very similar in that they are very dense and not very sweet.  I've always wondered how they get that dense texture.  I thought perhaps the pumpkin puree was cooked down a bit.  Cafe Pasqual's has a cookbook out, and they have a recipe for pumpkin pie in it, so I gave it a try (or at least what I thought was their recipe.  See my second, more successful attempt here.)

This is good, but it's not what they serve in the restaurant.  For one, it's considerably more sweet.  And there was a lot of liquid in it -- not that dense, thick texture I love.  I guess they're not giving away their secrets.

Here's what I used:

1 pre-baked whole wheat pie crust, fitted into a 9.5-inch* pie dish (recipe below)

4 large eggs

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree, 100% pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

3/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 cup dark molasses

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon 1 tablespoon ground ginger**

1/4  teaspoon ground clove

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

1/8 scant teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2  teaspoon fine sea salt

1 scant teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup heavy cream

Prebake the pie crust and cool crust completely. While crust is cooling, preheat oven to 400 degrees and begin to prepare the filling.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a wire whisk.  Add the pumpkin puree and whisk to combine.  Next mix in the maple syrup and molasses, followed by the sour cream, spices, salt, vanilla extract and finally the heavy cream, mixing with a whisk until thoroughly combined. Pour mixture into baked pie shell crust and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 and bake for an additional 45-50 minutes, until center is almost set and a toothpick or knife inserted into the center comes out clean.  If the crust edges are browning too quickly, fit a ring of foil around the rim. Let pie cool completely on a rack before serving.   Serve with a dollop of freshly whipped cream.

Whole Wheat Pie Crust (for 1 crust pie)

1¼ cup all purpose whole wheat flour (use pastry flour if desired)

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup cold butter, cut into 1/2 cubes

1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into roughly 1/2-inch cubes

3-4 tablespoons ice water

1 egg

1 tablespoon of water

In large bowl, mix flour, sugar and salt.  Add cold butter and shortening cubes to flour mixture and, with a pastry blender or your fingertips, cut in fat until mixture forms clumps about the size of tiny peas (clumps will be uneven.)  Quickly sprinkle ice water 1 tablespoon at a time over all of the flour mixture, tossing lightly with a spoon until you can form the dough into a ball.  (Don’t overwork dough.)  Flatten the ball into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and let rest refrigerated for an hour or longer. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Take the pie disk out of the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 10 minutes to soften a bit.  Roll into a 12-inch circle about 1/8-inch thick.  Fit dough into the bottom of the pie dish and dedecoratively crimp edges.  Line the shell with a piece of crumpled parchment paper or foil, then fill the pie shell with a layer of dried beans or other pie weights. Bake for about 15 minutes or just until crust starts to brown. While crust is baking, in small bowl whisk together the egg and tablespoon of water to make an egg wash. Remove crust from the oven, take pie weights out and brush the egg wash mixture all over crust (this will seal the crust preventing wet filling from making it soggy.)  Bake for another 8-10 minutes.  Cool completely on a wire rack before filling.

*The mix fit perfectly in a 9.5-inch pie pan that was 1.5 inches deep.

Conclusion:  This was a little too sweet for my taste, but it's fine if you're having just one piece for dessert.  The sweetness was very tolerable, not candy-like -- I suppose because it came from the maple syrup.  It also had a strong ginger taste, which at first I thought was too strong, but the next day thought it was okay.  I would, however, like to try it again with the Libby's (my third favorite pie) spice mix and perhaps only 2 teaspoons of ginger.

Recipe:   The Best Pumpkin Pie!!! via Jessica Collins TV***, adapted from David's Perfect Pumpkin Pie via Cooking with Cafe Pasqual's: Recipes from Santa Fe's Renowned Corner Cafe .   (1/20 update:  the original link to Jessica Collins TV no longer works, but her current recipe--- without reference to Cafe Pasqual's--- can be found here.)

 

**Cafe Pasqual's recipe contains 1 tablespoon of ginger.  Jessica Collins' recipe contains only 1/2 teaspoon.

***Kudos to The Wayback Machine for helping me find Collins' original post from November 22, 2010 after her site was taken down.