Pecan Surprise

How to make a delicious home-made pecan pie.

Some friends gave us pecan nuts and Mum decided she wanted to make pecan pie. Dad found her a recipe on the internet. She looked at it and groaned. Mum’s not good with fiddly things—remember the cheesecake a few weeks ago?

Luckily for Mum, Dad cracked those nuts because otherwise she would have broken her nails.

The ingredients needed for the pastry were the following:

  • 1 cup of cake flour
  • a pinch of salt
  • cup of cold butter (cut into small blocks)
  • half a tablespoon of caster sugar
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
  • 2 teaspoons of iced water

You had to sieve the flour and salt first. Then, using your fingertips, rub the cold butter into the flour until it’s all crumbly. Then add the caster sugar to the flour and mix in the egg yolk, water and lemon juice. Knead the dough for around ten minutes, then wrap it in cling film and let it chill in the fridge for an hour.

After an hour, you roll out that dough that’s been chilling in the fridge (literally – hahaha) and line a pie tin (or a pie dish). Prick the base of the pasty with a fork and blind bake it in the preheated oven for 10 minutes at 180oC

That’s just the pastry base people.

For the filling:

  • 3 large eggs,
  • 1/4 cup melted butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • 80ml golden syrup
  • 3/4 of a cup of pecan nuts.

While the base is cooking, whip up the filling quick. Beat the eggs (you can chuck in the left over egg white from the pastry too), add the melted butter, brown sugar, golden syrup and vanilla essence. When the mixture becomes sort of foamy, it’s ready.

When the base is cooked, fill it with the nuts and pour the sweet eggy mixture over the top. Bake it for about 40 minutes.

Mum made the pie exactly according to the recipe the first time. It was absolutely divine.

The second time (a week later) she did not bother with any of the fancy stuff.  She melted the pastry butter in the micro, mixed all the ingredients up, chucked the dough directly into the pie dish and baked it immediately.

Sometimes you have to make something properly the first time, to realise that you can take short cuts.

It tasted equally delicious!

Sibo

PS – If you’d like to know how to crack a pecan nut – see here.

So cheesy…

A cheesecake without any cheese!

The other day Mum got all excited about a recipe that she saw on foodiesofsa on Instagram. (This is the Facebook link – go check them out.)

A really easy cheesecake that only had 3 ingredients—and not one of them was cheese!

  • 1 kg of double cream yoghurt
  • 1 packet of lemon creams
  • 1 tin of condensed milk (well shaken before opening)

She included the stuff on her shopping list the following day, which happened to be a Saturday and Dad was home. She’d barely packed away the rest of the groceries when she was hauling out bowls to make the tart.

Dad suggested that she find the recipe on her cell phone before she started but she just waved her hand around airily and said, “Don’t be silly—it’s super easy. I remember exactly how to do it.”

Mum crushed up the biscuits in a plastic bag using the rolling pin.  Of course, she didn’t use a Ziploc bag as they suggested—the bag broke and spewed contents all over the kitchen counter. It didn’t matter because the counter was clean, so she just scooped them into the bowl that she’d already greased.

“How long do you microwave them for?” asked Dad.

“Three minutes.”

I think it was the first time that mum has ever actually managed to burn anything in the micro. She spent some time picking out a few black crispy bits and muttering under her breath. Then fetched her phone and double checked the recipe.  In fact, the biscuit crumbs were only supposed to spend 35-40 seconds in the micro!

Dad smirked.

She saved the day by melting a few spoons of butter and mixing it into the by now, rather dry, biscuit crumbs. Then smooshed them down with the back of a spoon to make the crust.

Next, she shook up the tin of condensed milk and mixed it together with the yoghurt in another bowl. That went into the micro for 2 minutes (actually the recipe said 2-3, but she was erring on the safe side). She took it out, stirred it quickly again and then popped it back in for another 3 minutes.

Then poured the mixture over the biscuit base, let it cool a bit and put it in the fridge. Can you believe that cheeky mum licked out the condensed milk tin without sharing? How rude!

We had cheesecake for pudding that night topped with Auntie Rudi’s fig jam.

It was delicious!

Sibo