I have always thought the New Year should be ushered in with a special dessert—Pecan Pie. Now, I don’t know if that’s a Southern tradition or not but if it isn’t, it should be, kind of like the Southern tradition of black-eyed peas on New Years.
Arguably, pecan pie is my favorite pie even though pecans a kind of pricey. But when it comes to pecans, I have my own personal “supplier”—my Mom.
Mom keeps me in pecans. For 35 plus years she’s been one of the mainstays of the annual pecan sale at her Methodist church in Brandon, Florida. Each year they make arrangements with a certain pecan orchard in south Georgia for pecans to fill orders they take from members of their church and from the community. The net proceeds go to their outreach programs—particularly serving families with children.
There’s 2 cool things about it. One is that they make something like $15,000 on the one day sale that they put back into the community and the other is that the pecans are absolutely fresh. The sale is on a Saturday and the pecans are harvested to order on Monday of the week of the sale, then processed and trucked to the church for the Saturday delivery. When you bite into one of the pecans you taste the sweet meat of the nut with never a hint of the bitterness that you sometimes get from pecans that have been sitting around sometimes as long as a year.
So, I love to make pie with the pecans that my Mom sends me each year. Mom is going to be 83 next month and to me she’s the Duchess of Pecans at Brandon United Methodist Church.
Pecan pie is actually pretty easy to make. This one turned out pretty tasty and I think it’s because I added a quarter cup of molasses which provided more depth and richness to balance out the sweet. My pie crust recipe is attached but if you want to use a refrigerated one or a frozen one, please go ahead. Here’s the recipe I use for my “Classic Pecan Pie”:
Recipe: Classic Pecan Pie
Summary: Classic Pecan Pie has just a few ingredients and takes just a few minutes and the results are incredible. Rich, tasty and scrumptious!
Ingredients
- 1 Pie Crust http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/old-fashioned-lard-pie-crust/
- 1 ½ cups pecans broken (appx 6 oz)
- 1 cup corn syrup (light or dark)
- 3 tbsp butter or margarine
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup molasses
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp salt
- 3 eggs
Instructions
- Get out a mixing bowl and a 9 inch pie pan. Turn oven on to 350.
- If you’re making pie crust, do it first and refrigerate it until you’re ready to roll it out.
- Put the broken pecans, syrup,
butter/margarine, brown sugar, molasses, vanilla, salt and eggs into the bowl. - Stir, stir, stir until it’s all incorporated.
- Roll out your pie crust and put it in your pie pan.
- Put the pie on a baking sheet and carefully pour the filling into the pie crust.
- Move to the oven. Put on the middle rack at 350 for 1 hour.
- Remove from oven, put on a cooling rack and let it cool for about 2 hours before serving.
Preparation time: 15 minute(s)
Cooking time: 1 hour(s)
Number of servings (yield): 6
Here’s that pie crust recipe link again: http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/old-fashioned-lard-pie-crust/
Pretty easy, wasn’t it? And this is so tasty and rich and down home Southern decadent. What a great way to greet the New Year.
The New Year should be greeted with it’s own feast. I had to work on both New Years Eve and New Years Day so yesterday we did it up right. T-bone steak, shrimp cocktail and pecan pie!
The Cheap Bastid Test: This isn’t all that bad. It costs about $.50 to make a pie crust, the eggs cost about $.50 and the other ingredients abut $.75. The big part is the pecans which are about $7 a pound in the bulk bin. So figure $3.50 for pecans by the time you buy a half pound and snack on a few of them to take it down to 1 ½ cups or 6 oz. The total for this incredibly tasty pie comes to $5.25. That’s about what you pay for one slice these days.
I died… I just died hahaha.. YUM
I have a pecan tree in my yard, so a free supply. I may need to get crackin’. I think the molasses is a great idea!
Rae, thanks and yeah, I think the molasses really made a difference.
I made your pecan pie this weekend. Came out fabulous!
That’s terrific Maria! I’m glad you enjoyed it and I’m glad it turned out well.