Bourbon Ginger Pecan Pie

I came home for Christmas on Tuesday evening and it's pretty much been a cooking, baking and eating marathon ever since. We've had quiche and pizza, gumbo and fresh baked baguettes, creamy au gratin potatoes and Brussels sprouts in bacon fat, porchetta pork roast and beef roast, Bûche de Nöel and Sweet Potato Sunshine Buns, Cranberry Chocolate Chess Pie and a Lemon Hazelnut Tart, and chocolate-- oh the chocolate! I'm feeling the need to go on a detox-- at least a mini one, before I hole up in a cabin with a group of friends who are all fantastic cooks and bakers...

One of my go-to detox ingredients is fresh ginger root. Aside from offering of my favorite flavors ginger root also has a number of medicinal properties. It's used to curb nausea and indigestion, treat colds, and has been known to help lower cholesterol. It's also an antioxidant with anti-inflammatory properties. I like to drink it as a tea-- grating about 2 teaspoons of fresh ginger into a tea ball or bag and steeping for 10 minutes in boiling water, then adding lemon and/or honey as desired. It also is a great addition to a smoothie or soup.



But if you're not ready for the holiday indulgences to be over just yet, I offer this Bourbon Ginger Pecan Pie as something of a gateway. I know, I know. With its hearty dose of whiskey and sweet stuff, it's a pretty far cry from anything resembling a detox, but it does contain three forms of a main detox ingredient-- ginger. Does that count?

From Allison Kave's superb cookbook First Prize Pies, this recipe is a zesty, boozy take on a classic pecan pie. Like my go-to Pecan Pie with Brown Sugar recipe, this version also contains no corn syrup, using brown sugar and maple syrup (you could also use sorghum) instead. I dialed back the sugar just a tad from the original recipe, but other than that it's pretty close to Allison's original version, which won her the "Best Overall" prize at the Brooklyn Pie Bake-off in 2010. You'll understand why upon the first bite.

Bourbon Ginger Pecan Pie
Adapted from First Prize Pies by Allison Kave

Ingredients
Nothing in the House pie crust, halved
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup Grade B maple syrup
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 Tablespoons good bourbon (I used Four Roses)
2 teaspoons (about a 2-inch piece) finely grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups pecan pieces
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, finely chopped
Egg wash (1 beaten egg + 1 Tablespoon whole milk or heavy cream)

Directions
1. Prepare half of the Nothing-in-the-House pie crust as per the directions. Chill dough at least 1 hour before rolling out and fitting into a greased and floured 9-inch pie pan. Place pie plate in fridge for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.


2. Once you've let the pie crust chill, prick crust with a fork all over the bottom. Line crust with parchment paper and pie weights or dried beans and bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove weights, and bake 3 more minutes. Let crust cool completely and set aside while you prepare the filling.

3. Lower the oven to 350 degrees F. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, syrup, eggs, bourbon, fresh ginger, ground ginger, and salt. Add the pecans and crystallized ginger to the pie shell and pour the liquid filling into the pie shell.

4. Brush crust with egg wash and bake for 25-30 minutes until the filling has just set and is slightly wobbly in the center. Remove pie to a wire rack and cool completely, at least 1 hour. Serve at room temperature or just warm.

*Chocolate variation: Melt 2 ounces of bittersweet chocolate and stir into filling before pouring into the pie shell.

Related recipes:
Bittersweet Chocolate Pecan Pie
"Indiana" Amish Oatmeal Pie
Pecan Pie with Brown Sugar

Dark Chocolate Sea-Salt Tart with Candied Pecans

It's the busiest baking time of the year, what with holiday celebrations at the office, screenings of It's A Wonderful Life at my house, and music-and-dinner parties at my parents', not to mention Christmas Eve, morning, dinner, AND New Year's Eve. But it's okay, because I've got a long list of things I want to bake (keep checking back here for what they are!). 

Yesterday we had a going away/holiday party at work, and my co-workers/party planning team asked if I would bake a pie and some cookies for it. They were already ordering a carrot cake from the caterer, so I decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to make something rich and chocolatey, namely, this chocolate sea-salt tart with candied pecans I had been eyeing over at Food Republic.

As I mentioned before, I've been on a salty-sweet kick, and this tart is no exception. Though I am always a bit dubious of other crusts, I went out on a limb and tried the one in Paul A. Young's recipe-- he is a master chocolatier after all. In the end, I think that the tart is SO rich that it doesn't really need a chocoalte crust, and that a normal pastry crust would help to temper the intensity of the bittersweet chocolate and salty pecans. But I'll let you decide for yourself. Here's the recipe I adapted...

Chocolate Sea-Salt Tart with Candied Pecans

(adapted from Paul A. Young, via Food Republic)

Ingredients:

Crust (You can use Nothing-in-the-House standard recipe, or as below):

12 Tblsp. unsalted butter,  kept cold and cut into pieces

1/3 c. sugar

2 large eggs, beaten

1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

Filling:

7 oz. Madagascan

60-70% dark chocolate, broken into pieces

1 c. sugar

3/4 c. heavy cream

1 tablespoon flaky sea salt

Topping:

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup pecan halves

Directions:

Crust:

1. If using the Nothing-in-the-House standard recipe, follow those instructions. If using the cocoa crust, mix together flour, sugar, and cocoa powder, the cut in cold butter pieces with a knife and fork or pastry cutter. Stir in beaten eggs, until dough comes together into a ball. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for one hour. Can be made 2 days ahead or frozen and thawed.

2. Preheat oven to 350°F. Sprinkle your work surface with flour and roll out pastry until it is about 12 in. in diameter. Grease and flour 10-in. tart pan and transfer crust to pan, trimming off excess crust. Refrigerate the crust for 15 minutes to help prevent shrinkage during baking.

3. Remove crust from fridge and line with parchment paper, and fill with pie weights or dried beans, and blind bake for 20 minutes. Take out paper and weights and bake for 5-8 more minutes until tart is fully baked. Let cool.

Filling:

1. Put all ingredients into the top of a double boiler. Put water in the bottom of the boiler and place on medium heat until filling is melted, glossy, and thick. 

2. Pour filling into the cooled, baked crust and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Topping:

1. Heat a saucepan on low heat until warm and gradually add the sugar, stirring constantly until melted into a golden liquid caramel. Add salt, then the pecans, mixing well. When fully combined, quickly pour the hot mixture onto a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Spread with a spatula.

2. Allow topping to cool thoroughly, then chop into bite-size shards and sprinkle over the tart. Keep tart refrigerated, until just before serving. Serve at room temperature and enjoy!

This tart went over quite well with my co-workers, with a lot of raving feedback--- "YUMMMMM" and "NAILED IT!"-- along with some and some "you KILL mes!" paired with a head shake (like I said, it's rich). Personally, I thought it was an excellent blend of flavors, and the slightly soft chocolate was perfect with the hard candied pecans, even though I admittedly couldn't finish my slice. It would probably best be washed down with a hot cup of coffee, or as once co-worker suggested, a cold glass of milk.

Vegan Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie!

Post contributed by my friend Justin in Baltimore...

Making vegan pecan pie is easy! I recently made my first, a chocolate bourbon vegan pecan pie, with great results, as pictured. I read a bunch of recipes, and followed along loosely with the three listed below to get an idea of measurements and ingredients:

Vegan Baking Recipe

American Food Recipe

Cupcake Punk Recipe

The basic idea is to make a sticky, sweet liquid mixture, combine that with about 2 cups of pecans that you've toasted in your pie crust, and bake at 350F for about 35 minutes.

If you're looking for a vegan pie crust recipe, I can recommend 1c all purpose flour, 1/4c water, 1/2c (or 4 oz) non-hydrogenated margarine or vegetable shortening, and a pinch of salt if your margarine isn't salted. Work that all together, put it in the fridge for a while, covered, if you have time, and roll it out when you're ready. For this recipe, you can pre-bake your crust and toast your pecans at the same time. Line your pie dish with your crust, then pour in the pecans, and put it in the oven at 350F for 15 minutes or so.

Choose a mix of sweeteners such as maple syrup, agave, corn syrup, molasses, brown sugar and water, brown rice syrup or whatever else you have on hand. Combine these in a pot with a little vanilla, a pinch of salt, 3 tablespoons or so of bourbon if you like, and heat over low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring. Add a little corn starch at the end, then mix in your pecans, put it all in your pie crust, and bake it! If you want to add chocolate, put in some broken up pieces of baking chocolate or dark chocolate chips or a broken up bar right before you bake the pie.

2nd Annual Pi(e) Day on the Piedmont

We celebrated the 2nd Annual Pi(e) Day on the Piedmont (see last year's here) at Johnny's in Carrboro, NC. It was a crisp, but sunny evening, the rain holding off until later in the night. Pies started arriving around 5:00, with eaters (many of whom I didn't know), champing at the bit, ready to eat at 5:30 sharp! Altogether we had a spread of 24 pies, plus several mini- and hand-pies, all made by our incredible 18 member Pi(e) Day Baking Team. Some were sweet, some were savory, some vegan, some gluten-free. Some had meringue, some were double crust, some had beautiful dollops of whipped cream (like Nicole's chocolate chess pie (below, left), but all were delicious. Here are a few highlights: Shannon's chocolate lavender (perhaps my favorite of the day) pie & my vegan avocado-coconut. Shannon said she used Smitten Kitchen's recipe for chocolate pudding pie then added about 1 tbsp more cornstarch to make it a touch less pudding-ish. To introduce the lavender flavor, she warmed the milk and added 2-3 tbsp dried lavender flowers and then let them soak for about half an hour before straining them out, then followed the Smitten Kitchen recipe. You could do the same thing using cardamom pods for a cardamom chocolate pie.

Ari's double banana bubble cream pies

My date butter pie. I used the recipe from the New York Times' featured date butter tart, but used the nothing -in-the-house crust recipe instead of pate sucre. I will write it out since I know the Times is moving to paid subscriptions... Ingredients:
35 to 40 deglet noor dates (can use another variety)
½ vanilla bean (I used 2 tsp. vanilla, for economy)
9 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 extra-large eggs
2⁄3cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1⁄3 cup all-purpose flour ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1. Make the crust using nothing-in-the-house crust recipe at right (halve it as you only need a bottom crust). After refrigerating, roll out crust and place into greased and floured pie dish. Trim and flute edges.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork and line the tart shell with a few coffee filters, or with a piece of parchment paper. Fill the lined tart shell with beans or pie weights and bake 15 minutes, until set. Take the tart out of the oven and gently lift out the paper and beans. Return to the oven and bake another 10 to 15 minutes, until the crust is an even golden brown. Set aside on a rack to cool.

3. Make a vertical slit in each date and remove the pit. Use your fingers to press the dates back into their natural shape (I didn't need to do this as mine were pitted). Place the dates, slit side down, in concentric circles in the tart shell, leaving ½ inch between each date.

4. Slice the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and use a paring knife to scrape the seeds and pulp onto the butter. To make sure not to lose any of the seeds, run your vanilla-coated knife through the butter. Heat a medium sauté pan over medium heat for 1 minute. Add the vanilla-streaked butter and the vanilla pod to the pan and cook 6 to 8 minutes, until the butter browns and smells nutty. Discard the vanilla pod. (I just used 2 tsp. vanilla extract instead of a bean)

5. Whisk the eggs and ⅔ cup sugar together in a bowl. Whisk in the flour and salt and stir in the warm butter to incorporate.

6. Pour the batter over the dates in the tart shell. Sprinkle the top with the remaining tbsp. sugar. Bake 30 minutes, until the filling puffs, browns and is set. Cool the tart at least 20 min. before serving.

Andrew's bourbon chocolate pecan pie and my Shaker lemon pie (with pi to 13 places)

Emily O's pear-walnut tart (unfortunately didn't get to try this one, but it looks beautiful)

In addition to the ones pictured, the other pies were: swiss potato & cheese pie; mushroom, greens & leek quiche; key lime pie; crack pie; pecan sorghum pie; Mayan chocolate pie; apple mini pies; leek, nettle & ricotta pie; rhubarb cream pie with meringue; Jefferson Davis pie, strawberry-rhubarb pie, apple pie, purple sweet potato pie, spinach-feta quiche and apple hand pies.

Ashley set up a Pi(e) Day photo booth and snapped a few pie portraits (Stokes w/ pie lurker Zeke, Talula, and Emily & Alex, with more to be posted in a separate entry shortly)... The Wildegeeses (Charlie, Will, Zeke, and me) played... And we had a Pi(e) Walk, where the winner won a homemade maple pie. In the end we raised $400 for CEFS to develop a statewide youth food council, and celebrated pie, spring, and mathematics (pushes up invisible nerd glasses) with about 75 friends, new and old. Check out our flickr for more photos and don't miss this sweet, sweet video that Ashley made, perfectly capturing the lovely evening.

pi(e) day 2011: it's not just about me, it's about pie. from Ashley Melzer on Vimeo.

Special thanks to our baking team: Emily O' Sullivan, Alix Blair, Shannon Harvey, Ashley Melzer, Whitney Brown, Nicole Bogas, Sarah Schwartz Sax, Neale Stokes, Aaron Smithers, Emily Hilliard, Kelly Smith, Ari Berenbaum, Rachel & Nate Lerner, Carla Norwood, Janie Woodbridge, Andrew Aghapour, & Kim Tungate

Photographer/documentarian Ashley Melzer

And other helpers: Lora Smith, Emily Wallace, Alex Chassanoff, Kavanah Anderson, Lindsay Perry, Tes Thraves/CEFS, The Wildegeeses, Johnny's, and MATH! Plus all who attended, ate, and donated. THANK YOU!

Potomac Thanksgiving Pies

"soup and grace in the library?"

I spent this Thanksgiving with my friend Jamie's family (as well as Jamie himself, Anna, Bob, Monique, and more pals) in Potomac, Maryland. I arrived to a bustling house of dough rolling, sweet potato blending, and dog show watching. As dinner approached, we were given "task cards" to help prepare for the feast. I joined John on the "water team," whose task, I must say, was rather delayed, waiting for the "ice team" to finish theirs! Michael was put on "device box," which was meant to collect everyone's cell phones and lock them away during dinner (how NELPy), but I don't think that really happened. Bob, pictured above, was on "soup serving", which meant serving little espresso cups full of sweet potato soup on a silver tray, for the soup toast in the library. He was quite the perfect butler.

Dinner was SO delicious and plentiful--highlights for me were the spicy mac and cheese, mashed rutabaga (sorry Leslie), green beans, and sweet potato casserole but I'm sure I am forgetting something because everything was amazing. Now let's get on to the pies.


In addition to various Thanksgiving cookies, there was a delicious apple cranberry pie, two pumpkin pies, and I made a bittersweet chocolate pecan pie. I adapted the recipe from Gourmet. It is as follows:

Bittersweet Chocolate Pecan Pie

Ingredients

Nothing-in-the-house pie crust, halved

1 4-oz, 70%-cacao bittersweet chocolate bar, chopped

2 cups pecan halves, toasted and cooled

3 large eggs

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup agave-maple syrup blend

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt chocolate in a metal bowl over simmering water. Stir. Remove from heat when melted.

2. Roll out chilled dough and place in a greased and floured pie pan, fluting the crust.

3. Spread chocolate in the bottom of pie shell and let set a bit, then cover with pecans. Whisk eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, and agave-maple blend in a bowl. Pour over pecans.

4. Bake pie until filling is puffed and crust is golden brown, 40-50 minutes. Serve with bourbon whipped cream and enjoy!

I am pretty into this combination. Usually I think that pecan pie is too sweet, so using maple-agave blend (you could also just use maple syrup or brown rice syrup) instead of corn syrup helps with that, as does the bittersweet chocolate. When I made this a second time, for the WXYC Sinterklaas Party, I sprinkled some sea salt crystals on top. Yum.

We topped ours off with Bourbon whipped cream, as Michael is demonstrating here.

PEZ and WEZ

Many thanks to Leslie and James for hosting and welcoming me to a delicious and lovely Thanksgiving feast.

Eye on the Pie, or, Why Clubhouse Time/Home Items Practice is the Best

Pie and painting with the ladies!

Chocolate Pecan to be exact, made by Stacy.