I enjoy making food for myself, and I even whip up a dessert every now and then. It can be lovely to make something nice for oneself. This is definitely not one of those "flying solo" recipes. When making this, it is best to have at least a few people around-this pie is rich and delicious (I've been told it's borderline addictive,) and it's good to have help eating it (plus, a very small piece will satisfy a sweet tooth-it's quite rich.)
One of my favorite Thanksgiving season (yes, I just called Thanksgiving a season) recipes is Pablo's chocolate bourbon pecan pie. This pie of mine pays homage to that great dessert and also brings in the pumpkin element.
Pablo!
I made this pie yesterday to practice my pie skills for Thanksgiving (I need to make a few pies before the main event) and to welcome my sister Caroline to New York for a visit. She tasted it, and said "you should make this ALL the time." Suffice it to say, she liked it. Pablo also gave his stamp of approval-perhaps this will be a new family recipe.
Caroline!
For this pie, I made the crust, but I don't think there would be anything wrong with using a purchased pie crust or making a graham cracker crust-as always, do as you please.
What day with decadent pie isn't awesome?!
While this is certainly a pie of bold flavors, they balance nicely-the chocolate and pecan have a roundness that complements the bourbon and maple, and the pumpkin is a wonderful base. This is not a pie that tastes really boozey or sharp-it's really quite mellow (albeit rich.)
Ingredients
Pie Crust:
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 1/2 sticks of butter cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons of sugar (omit if you like)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar (omit if you like-my great grandmother swore by it)
Small glass of ice water
Foil
Beans (I'm not crazy...well, I am, but you'll see why these are here later)
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a food processor, combine butter, flour, sugar and salt. Take the ingredients for a spin-the result should look like whitish rubble. If I had vegetable shortening on hand, I likely would do 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening. I just had butter, so I made do with what I had.
2. Add the vinegar (if using-that's an old trick of my grandmother's) and feed some of the cold water into the mix-keep adding (and pulsing the processor) until you have a rough ball.
3. Turn the contents of the processor onto a floured work surface, and shape the dough into a disk.
Dough disk.
4. Refrigerate dough for an hour and a half (a few hours more is even better)
5. Roll the crust in small motions-this is personal, I don't care for the result if I try and flatten the whole disk in one motion with my rolling pin.
6. Roll the pie crust around your rolling pin and transfer to your pie dish.
Dough is ready to be transferred!
7. Fit the dough comfortably in the pie dish-this is not the time to stretch the dough-you should have plenty for this crust.
8. Trim the overhand, leaving a little bit of room (you want some overhang)
Trim trim trim....
9. Fold the overhang under the top of the crust and crimp the sides.
10. Place a sheet of foil in the piecrust and add dry beans. This will weight the crust down and allow it to crisp beautifully.
11. Bake the crust for about 10-15 minutes.
12. Fill to your hearts content.
Chocolate Pecan Streusel
Ingredients
3/4 cup of pecans (whole or chopped)
3/4 cup of chocolate (I used semi sweet chocolate chips-bittersweet would be great too.)
3/4 cup of light brown sugar.
3/4 stick of butter (if you're using a smaller processor, cut this into smaller bits or it will get stuck)
Method
1. This is what I call "brain dead streusel." In a food processor, combine all ingredients and pulse until ingredients are mixed (small chunks of chocolate and pecan in brown sugar)
Maple-Bourbon Pumpkin Pie Filling
Ingredients
4 eggs
1 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree (please don't use pumpkin pie mix-it would be WAAAY too sweet)1/4 granulated white sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup of maple syrup (check the label...)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
Dash of cinnamon (to taste)
Grating of nutmeg (to taste, but I suggest going easy on this)
2 1/2 tablespoons of bourbon
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Crack all the eggs in a mixing bowl and lightly whisk.
2. Add pumpkin, and whisk
3. Add both white and brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Add the Maple syrup and bourbon, whisking well.
5. This is a very runny mixture-don't be alarmed. You may have more mixture than available space (this depends on your pie dish.)
6. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. Then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 15 minutes (you could also turn your pie-I didn't, and it was fine.)
7. Add the chocolate pecan streusel and bake 15 minutes more.
8. Eat greedily.
It's a very aesthetically pleasing pie-very pretty to look at, and even better to taste!
You're sweet!
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