This combination was even better than it sounds, thanks to an extremely (accidentally) crispy crust and some bourbon-vanilla whipped cream (not pictured). I can say without false modesty that this is one of the most delicious pies I've tasted, let alone made.
I feel I ought to apologize for not posting more frequently lately. It's not that I haven't been making pie; I've just been lazy about actually making blog posts about pie. This one was Christmas Eve's concoction, and it's now 2012 already. So obviously I'm a bit behind. But, then again, I don't actually care. Apology retracted. Eat pie!
Um, anyhow.
This recipe is adapted from Ken Haedrich's excellent book Pie, though the pie crust is purely Carolyn's technique.
The recipe:
Ingredients:
1 recipe pie crust
Filling:
2/3 cup light corn syrup (I used agave nectar)
2/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
4 oz semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
Generous pinch salt
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecan halves
Instructions:
1. Prepare pie crust and freeze. Freeze that sucker hard.
2. Partially pre-bake. (Ken says to do this covered in foil, with pie weights, for 15 minutes, at 400 degrees, then remove the foil and weights, prick with a fork and bake 10-12 min more at 375 degrees. But then, he also uses a part-shortening crust. I found that this had an odd result with my all-butter crust: the butter boiled away, foaming visibly around the edges. The results were actually a little too flaky for my taste. Though no one else complained. Your mileage may vary. Anyhow, take the crust out and cool it a bit, and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
3. Gently heat the corn syrup, brown sugar, and butter together in a medium-sized saucepan until the butter melts. Turn off the heat and add the chocolate and salt. Let stand 5 to 7 minutes, occasionally tilting and shaking the pan so the liquid runs over the chocolate. Whisk until smooth, then pour into a medium-size bowl and let cool for 10 minutes.
4. Whisk the eggs and egg yolk together in another medium-sized bowl until frothy. Blend in the vanilla. Add about half the chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. Blend in the rest of the chocolate. Add the pecans and mix well. Pour the mixture into your pie crust and stir the nuts around with a fork so that they're evenly distributed.
5. Bake on the center rack until the filling has puffed and cracked slightly, especially around the edges, about 40 minutes. After the first 20 minutes, rotate it 180 degrees. Don't worry if the pie filling seems a little wobbly when you take it out; it'll finish cooking as it cools.
6. Cool on a wire rack. Serve either slightly warm or chilled. (I did the latter- in fact, I chilled for a whopping 24 hours due to a holiday-unfriendly work schedule. It tasted great even so.
7. Whip some cream. Add cinnamon, vanilla, powdered sugar, and maybe a splash of bourbon if you feel fancy.
Eat this sucker up. Don't eat it all yourself, you'll need to share.
Photo time:
Here's my pre-baked crust. You can tell that it's been a bit ravaged by heat and by the butter cooking away. You can also tell that it's gonna be pretty crispy when done.
Here's my butter and sugar mixture, in the pan:
Here's the choco-pecan mixture getting mixturized:
And, when poured into the pie, it looks like this:
Finally, two pics of the pie, fresh out of the oven:
Overhead shot (note the butter foam around the edges):
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