A Glorious Pudgy Pecan Pie

It’s not a holiday season without some pecan pie.  I love apple and pumpkin pies but there’s something about pecan pie.  The caramel-y sweetness.  The toasted pecans.  I just love it.  So of course, when I saw the America’s Test Kitchen All-Time Best Holiday Recipes on the shelf with it’s old-fashioned Pecan Pie recipe…well, I had to have it (I also just have a bit of an addiction to anything Cook’s Illustrated / America’s Test Kitchen related so that always helps).  This recipe is inspired from that one.

Ingredients:

• 1/4 c. of pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (toast them for 5 minutes at 350 degrees)
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp of molasses
• 1 Tbsp of butter
• Pinch of salt
• 1/2 egg yolk, lightly whipped*
• 1 tsp corn starch
• 2 slices of bread, lightly buttered on one side

* If you decide you want to make 2 pecan pie Toas-Tites, just double the recipe and use a full egg yolk!

Directions:

1. Start by preparing the filling of your pecan pie.
2. In a small sauce pan, heat the brown sugar, maple syrup, heavy cream, and molasses over medium heat until the sugar dissolves (about 3 minutes).
3. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.
4. Whisk the butter, salt, and egg yolk (keep in mind, you only need about half of an egg yolk for one Toas-Tite pie) into the syrup mixture.
5. To thicken the syrup a bit more, mix the corn starch with a tiny bit of cold water in a separate bowl and whisk into the syrup.
6. Add your pecans to the syrup and set aside.
7. Place one of the slices of bread into the grill with the buttered side toward the metal clamshell.
8. Spoon the pecan and syrup mixture into the center of the bread.  You may not need all of it so use your best judgement on how much filling to use.

9. Carefully place the second slice of bread on top, buttered side up (away from the filling).
10. Close the grill and trim the excess bread.
11. Toast over low heat for 6 minutes on each side, rotating every 2 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown.
12. Remove the pie from the grill and let cool so the syrup isn’t nuclear when you bite in.
13. If you’re in the mood, whip up some whipped cream and plop it on top.  Either way, dig in and enjoy!

Notes from the Kitchen

For this one, we used a honey wheat bread to add a bit of sweetness but white bread would work well also.  We also ended up using about 75% of our syrup and nut mixture just to be on the safe side so as not to overload the pie.  And all in all…

…it was awesome.  We made pecan bars as well (also pictured above).  For those, we merged two America’s Test Kitchen recipes – the old-fashioned pecan pie recipe and the pecan bars recipe.  And if I do say so, they were pretty darn fantastic too.  If you have a chance, pick up that issue and give them a try.  Along side this Toas-Tite and a glass of milk, you won’t be disappointed.

Featured image: Pecan Pie by Flickr’s @joefoodie