Better Than Grandma’s Pecan Pie
Pecan pie is one of the few dishes my mom’s family serves at every single holiday dinner. It was also one of the first recipes I got to help with; when I was little, my mom and I would arrange the pecan halfs on the empty pie shell, carefully resisting the temptation to press them in, so they would rise to the top during baking. As a teenager, I made the pie myself a few times, and was always so proud of my contribution.
We’ve only ever used one recipe for pecan pie, and that’s Grandma’s recipe. I’m not sure if she actually wrote it herself, or if we call it that because she made it for so many years. The thing is, Grandma’s recipe uses corn syrup. In fact, it uses more corn syrup than anything else.
I did a wee bit of research online before last year’s holidays, trying to find a “real” pecan pie recipe that didn’t call for corn. I figured there would be an original recipe that people used before the advent of corn syrup.
As far as I can tell, I was wrong. Pecan pie was an invention of the processed food age, and the original recipe was printed on a bottle of Karo syrup! Yikes.
Luckily, I did find an alternative recipe by John Thorne. In place of corn syrup, he uses golden syrup, a British product that I can’t find around here. I’ve been using agave nectar instead, but I think any inverted sugar syrup — like honey or maple sugar — would work.
With dishes like this, the final product relies more on the quality of the ingredients than how you cook it. If you go out of your way to get truly full-flavored brown sugar, high quality butter (Straus!), and tasty little pecans, the pie will be exceptional.
I made this pie for Thanksgiving this year, and a couple family members dared to call it, “Better than Grandma’s.” Sorry Grandma, but it’s true. It’s unapologeticly untraditional, and it’s reaaaaaally yummy.
Pecan Pie
Ingredients
- 1 packed cup full-flavored brown sugar
- scant 2/3 cup agave nectar
- 3 tablespoons Meyer’s dark rum
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups broken pecan meats
- 9″ unbaked pie shell
- Heat the brown sugar, butter, and agave nectar to boiling, stirring constantly and scraping foam from sides.
- Boil for about 1 minute. Remove from heat and cool.
- Beat eggs until creamy.
- Temper eggs with sugar mixture, then combine along with salt, pecans, and rum.
- Pour into shell and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Cool before serving.