My mother in law, Shirley is an INCREDIBLE baker. A serious sweets maker. A sugar-craving away-taker.
So when she asked me to chip into the Thanksgiving preparations by making a pecan pie I felt more than a little nervous… thankfully, she was making an apple AND a pumpkin pie just in case. 😉
She also made enough crust so I could just use the flaky pastry she’s perfected over the years…which meant that I was really just in charge of the filling. I wanted to jazz up the standard pecan pie recipe she had just a bit, so I combined a couple of recipes that looked good and ended up with a Chocolate. Bourbon. Pecan. Pie. that was the real deal for people who need a little something (or a lot of something) sweet after ALL the thanksgiving gorging.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon of Crisco or other shortening
2 Tablespoons of cool water
3 large eggs, beaten
1/4 Cup butter, melted
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1 cup sugar
2-3 tablespoons good-quality bourbon
To make the crust, mix your salt into the flour in a medium mixing bowl. Cut the shortening into the flour/salt mixture using a pastry cutter or a fork until the mixture is the size of peas. Shirley uses a fork, and works just right, so if you don’t have a pastry cutter, don’t fret or run out and buy one. (this is Shirley, hard at work.)
Now, lightly flour your work surface and turn the ball of dough out onto it. Lightly flour the rolling pin and/or the top of the ball of dough so it won’t stick. No really… lightly flour this so you don’t work too much flour into the dough otherwise it’ll be too tough.
Tip from Shirley: Roll the dough from the center of the ball OUTWARD so that your pie ends up a more uniform thickness.
You’ll need to roll the dough into a circle about 1/8″ thick. It’ll also need to be a 1″-2″ inches greater than the diameter of the pan. (so if your pan is 9″ in diameter, then you’ll want to have 10″ or 11″ circle of pie crust”
THIS IS TRICKY for the beginner, but you can do it! Make sure the top of the crust is lightly floured and fold the the dough circle in half to make a half-moon. Carefully (eeks!) lift the dough into your pie pan with the fold in the center and then unfold it to cover the entire pan. Lightly press the dough down onto the edges of the pan, and along the sides.
The dough will hang over the edge of the pan a little bit. It’s almost time to crimp the crust and make it pretty, but first you’ll want to roll the dough along the edges back under so that you have a little extra ridge of dough to work with. Then, you can take your thumbs and make an imprint with a little raised ridge between each. Continue around the pan using both thumbs. You can technically also use a fork for this if you want a different kind of edge, but Shirley crinkles her nose and shakes her head at this tactic.”Use your thumbs,” she says.
I added the pecans BEFORE the butter the first time, but I recommend adding the pecans and chocolate chips in last so that all of the liquid ingredients are able to mix and incorporate super well.
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