Pecan Pie.

April 8th, 2011

This classic southern American recipe is incredibly tasty served warm with your favourite ice cream.

Makes one large (11 inch) tart or four small (4 inch) tarts.

Method.

To make the pastry put the flour and icing sugar in a food processor. Pulse for a few seconds until they are combined. Add the margarine (make sure it is nice and cold when it goes in). Pulse the food processor until you have the consistency of fine bread crumbs.

Unless the mixture is starting to come together into a dough you will need to add some cold water. Start with a teaspoon and then pulse for 10 seconds. If the dough isn’t coming together, add another teaspoon of water and pulse again. Repeat until the mixture balls up into a dough.

Wrap the dough in plastic and place in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Heat the oven to 180C / 360F.

Whilst the dough is in the freezer start to make the filling. In a saucepan over a medium heat combine the polenta, water, soy milk and sugar. Stir regularly until the polenta is cooked, which depending on the type of polenta will take between 5 to 15 minutes. Stir in the margarine and set aside.

Take the dough from the freezer and roll it out to fit the pie pan (or pans). Lay the dough in to the pan, trim the edges and place a square of baking paper on top, then pour something on top to hold it down (you can use ceramic pastry balls, I usually use some dried chickpeas I keep especially for this purpose).

Bake the tart in the oven for 10 minutes (5 minutes if you are using small pie pans).

Remove the pie crust from the oven and take off the baking paper and ceramic pastry balls. Spoon in the polenta mixture and smooth evenly over the pastry. Press the pecans into the polenta mixture.

Return the pies to the oven for 30 minutes (until the crust is golden).

Brush the pie with maple syrup and serve.