The 26th pie in this project was meant to be a pie that had captured my attention from the beginning of the project. In a fancy room at Brown University, my food writing professor asked me what was next after popsicles ended. I smiled, wondering if I should answer with my work or life plans (I had none) or with my food project plans (I had many). I went with what I knew. "Pies" I stated, grinning. She responded with delight, saying most notably "You must make a pie with duck fat."
Of course, those words haunted me for the next year and a half. I spent the summer and fall of 2019 trying to convince my duck-fat hookup to provide me with duck fat (I don't feel that I can share more detail on this sentence). It always fell through. Then I spent most of 2020 inside my house, the mere thought of entering a grocery store striking panic into my body. Good duck fat was hard to come by. Finally, in late 2020, I secured the fat. I cut it into a dough and made a nice, rich chicken pot pie filling to pile inside the crust. From the minute I began working with the duck fat, I knew things were wrong. I had forgotten throughout all of this passionate hunt (most likely due to my being a relentlessly stubborn person) that I am WEIRD about fowl. I can barely handle dark meat chicken, I won't touch a Thanksgiving turkey, and I have eaten duck (out of social obligation) scant a dozen times in my life. Once, Reed T told me a long tale about eating chicken sashimi in Japan and I spent the rest of the night on the verge of fainting. I am not proud of being weird about fowl, of course, as someone who likes good food. But it, just like my duck fat being nearly impossible to secure, is an unavoidable fact. I think dealing with unavoidable facts in the most elegant way I can muster has been the central learning from the pie project. I made 52 popsicles during my final year of college, which was a bittersweet rollercoaster. I made 26 pies during my first year (and a half) in the adult world, a time when I spent most of my life staring at a computer monitor in my garage and trying to find duck fat. So, to return to elegant responses to unavoidable facts: the duck fat pie was absolutely repulsive to me. Most of it ended up in the bin. I have had such a wonderful time making many pies. Thanks for following along!
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I made this salted maple pie multiple times during the pie project. Sister Pie's salted maple pie, which is a play on two other famous bakeries sugar-heavy chess pies, is lovely and decadent. Salted Maple Pie Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2-3 hours Recipe from Sister Pie Ingredients 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1⁄4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled 1 cup Grade B maple syrup 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar 1/4 cup fine yellow cornmeal 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt 3 large eggs, at room temperature 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature 3/4 cup heavy cream, at room temperature 1 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract Directions To make the filling, combine the melted butter and maple syrup in a bowl. Whisk in brown sugar, cornmeal, and salt. Crack the eggs and yolk into another bowl. Add the cream and vanilla and whisk until combined. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the maple mixture and whisk just until combined. Pour the maple filling into your blind-baked pie shell until it reaches the bottom of the crimps. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until the edges are puffed and the center jiggles only slightly when shaken. It will continue to set as it cools. Let pie cool for 4 to 6 hours. Once fully cooled and at room temperature, sprinkle with flaky sea salt. Serve with whipped cream. Pie #25 was a lovely little update on Pie #11 (a Cranberry Pear Walnut Pie). To make the previous pies filling, you combine pulsed cranberries and sugar with pears, lemon juice, orange zest, cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg. For this pie, I took out the pears. Pears are a fine fruit, but to me, this was better sans pear. The cranberry is a complex little thing (purposefully not saying fruit because that seems like a trap) and it can stand on its own in a pie. To make the topping, I combined oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Instead of elegantly making a circle, like in Pie #11, I simply dumped the topping over the whole pie. This was easy and delicious.
It is a truth universally acknowledged (for long time readers of the 52 popsicle project) that I once tried to bring my baking torch into a Jonas Brothers concert. I was thirteen, my friend's sister needed to borrow it, and my pre-frontal cortex wasn't fully developed. Owning a baking torch is always fun. But it is ESPECIALLY fun when used in a marshmallow-toasting setting. This pie is so good - the chocolate filling is rich, the graham cracker crust is reliable, the marshmallow is crackly, and the flavor profile is NOSTALGIC yet MODERN. S'more Pie Yield: 1 pie | Time: 2.5 hours Adapted from Smitten Kitchen Ingredients For the graham cracker crust: About 10 graham cracker sheets 7 tbsp butter For the chocolate filling: 7 oz bittersweet chocolate 1 cup heavy cream 1 egg, at room temp For the marshmallow topping: Purchase marshmallow fluff. Directions Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. For the crust, pulverize the graham crackers to crumbs in a food processor. Stir in your melted butter and smoosh mixture into pie tin. Bake for ten minutes, until set. For the chocolate filling, microwave your cream until it is hot. You could certainly do this on the stove, but I think this pie should be easy. So I tried to make it as easily as I could. And it worked out beautifully. Microwave your cream in a pyrex and then drop your chopped chocolate right in. Stir until uniform, and crack in your egg (and a pinch of salt) and mix until glossy. To make the pie, pour the chocolate filling into the crust. Bake for about 25 minutes. Cool pie for at least an hour. When ready, spoon your marshmallow fluff onto the top of your pie, and spread decoratively. Right before you serve the pie, torch that sucker until your desired level of golden. Pie #23 made use of a bit of cookie dough that had too much butter in it. While the cookies could not hang in the oven, they fared just fine smooshed out into a pie tin. I baked that, and topped it with chocolate chip ice cream and whipped cream. Excellent sort-of-pie!
This week's pie was a truly delightful key lime pie with a layer of blackberry jam at its base. I love key lime pie, but I have had a historic fear of making it on my own. That all changed three years ago when my friend Ken and I had a life-changing key lime pie experience in...you guessed it. Florida. I asked him to write about it below. If you don't enjoy blasphemy, skip to the end. "There are few desserts as risky to order at a restaurant, in my humble opinion, as key lime pie. It’s not a complicated pastry. It’s not technique-heavy or prohibitively yeasted and risen, so there’s no logical reason the stakes in ordering one should be as gloriously high as they are. But in my experience, key lime pie is either the perfect dessert— chilled, creamy, sweet-tart custard, lime flavor zinging through and erasing any trace of eggyness, topped with light, fluffy, vanilla-scented whipped cream, all nestled in a buttery, crispy [flake] graham cracker crust— or it is a garish nightmare confection: cloyingly saccharine lime-flavored scrambled eggs slathered with Cool Whip (trademark) plopped into an overly sweet and bone-dry graham cracker graveyard. So in March of 2018, when Clare and I endeavored to split a slice of key lime pie at a restaurant on the beach in Naples, Florida.... it goes without saying that we were both waiting with bated breath for it to arrive. It had the power to make or break our evening, and we knew it. Finally, it arrived —-- And did it hold up, reader. Did it ever. So enamored with it was I that I was struck with the idea to try our hand at making one of our very own the following night; our friend’s Floridian grandparents’ kitchen seemed the perfect place to concoct some key lime-flavored happiness for ourselves and our lovely hosts. Clare was reticent at first. I thought her simply quiet in her support until I finally pushed a little harder, determined for a positive response from my pastry partner. “It can’t be done,” she said. I was floored. My dreams were shattered. My crest? It was fallen, dear reader. In fact, she revealed herself a downright Doubting Thomas, for the Catholics in the audience. [she didn’t believe we could do it, for the non-religiously inclined among you]. It was too complicated, surely it couldn’t be done here in our humble little kitchen. But I had grown obsessed, and I would not rest until we had given it a try. Well, try we did. And you know what else we did? Succeeded. Brilliantly. We stuck our hands into the proverbial side-wounds and we found the flesh there deliciously tangy." Thanks, Ken. There you have it...we made a great pie that day and my fears have been smashed ever since. Please enjoy these photos of the pie that inspired us that week (is the bird being stabbed through the neck? Not sure!) And our (Ken's) subsequent masterpiece of a pie. Blackberry Key Lime Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Time: 2 hours Ingredients For the graham cracker crust: About 10 graham cracker sheets 7 tbsp butter For the blackberry jam: 2 cups blackberries 2 tbsp sugar For the key lime filling: 3 egg yolks 2 tsp lime zest 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk 2/3 cup lime juice 1 cup whipping cream (to top the pie) Directions For the crust, pulverize the graham crackers to crumbs in a food processor. Stir in your butter, melted, and smoosh into pie tin. Bake at 350 for ten minutes, until set. For the jam, bring blackberries and sugar to a boil and then simmer until reduced. You may have to add a bit of water to convince the blackberries to break down. Save in a jar. To make the pie, spoon your jam into your crust and spread into an even layer. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. With an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks and lime zest at high speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Then add your condensed milk and beat for another 3 to 4 minutes. Slowly add in the lime juice and mix to combine. Pour this custard mixture into your crust (adding decorative jam swoops if you feel so inclined). Bake for 10 minutes, or until the filling has just set. Cool on a wire rack, then refrigerate. Freeze for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. This freezing was essential particularly for this pie, as the soft jam will be tempted to weaken your graham cracker crust. I topped the pie with half regular whipped cream and half blackberry-whipped cream, but you should top your pie with whatever whipped cream you can produce. A few days ago, a friend texted me saying that her dad had entered the kitchen while she was busy cooking and asked "do you enjoy cooking?" She was surprised at the encounter, I was surprised at the encounter, and it prompted us to have a conversation about if we enjoy cooking (we do) and why (this was a bit harder to answer). This question has plagued me for the past few days. Of course I like cooking - I spend most of my life perusing food content, thinking about food, talking about food, and consuming food - but WHY do I like cooking? I have been thinking about it obsessively for a few days and I think a piece of the the answer can be found in this cheddar crusted lemon, tomato, basil tart. This tomato basil tart was a piece of a larger "Ode to the LeMom" meal that I made with my sister and mom for Mother's Day. The crust was a bit of an accident - when I initially made the dough, I didn't think that the cheddar would rise above the flour and butter to create a jammy, rich base that the lemons could sink into. The baking time was also a surprise - I covered the tart with foil after the first half an hour and let it cook for almost an hour longer. This extra time in the oven encouraged the lemons to be a bit sweeter and the tomatoes to be even more caramelized. And the process of eating it - discussing the surprise and delight of the lemon, the beauty of the tomato, and the fun of the cheddar - brought together (and helped me answer) many of the things that I love about cooking: being creative, having a fun theme that can direct that creativity, being with others, getting to use food to celebrate your mom and your favorite citrus, and making low-risk mistakes. Friend - please forward this to your dad. Tomato Lemon Tart
Yield: 1 tart | Time: 2 hours Ingredients For the crust: 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp sugar 1 tsp kosher salt 1 cup unsalted butter 1 oz cheddar, shredded or roughly chopped For the filling: 1 meyer lemon, very thinly sliced A handful of basil Two heirloom tomatoes, thinly sliced Salt + pepper + olive oil Directions For the crust, mix together your apple cider vinegar with ice cold water. In a food processor, add the flour, salt and sugar and pulse to mix. Pulse in the butter and then pulse in your cheese. Add in the water vinegar mixture slowly and pulse until the dough just begins to come together. Bring the dough together into a ball and refrigerate for at least an hour. To make the tart, roll out your crust and fit it into your pie or tart pan and poke some holes into it to help prevent it from becoming soggy. Spread a bit of olive oil on the crust. Place the lemons in a thin layer. Sprinkle the basil over the lemons. Place the tomatoes over the lemon and basil. Drizzle a bit more olive oil on top and add salt and pepper. Bake the tart uncovered for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, cover in foil, and bake for another 45 minutes. The tomatoes should look weakened by the oven. Some pies are elegant, some pies are a celebration of the season, some pies are nostalgic and this chocolate coconut pie is a pie that just tastes delicious. That is not to say that the preceding eighteen pies have not been delicious but rather to say that the only takeaway one could express after eating a slice of this pie would be "that tasted so good in my mouth." I am not an intense coconut lover, and I know a lot of people who like chocolate more than I do. But something about the way that the coconut flakes bring a dark thickness to the chocolate base, and the whipped cream zips in lightness...really works. This is a good pie. Make it when you want a decadent, any-time pie. Chocolate Coconut Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Time: A full day. This pie needs to cool to accept the whipped cream. Ingredients 1 sister pie crust For the filling: 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 ½ tbsp yellow cornmeal 1/2 tsp kosher salt 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cubed 3 tbsp bittersweet chocolate 3 tbsp coconut milk (FULL FAT) 3 tbsp cocoa powder 3 large eggs 1 1/4 cups shredded, sweetened coconut For the topping: 2 cups heavy cream 1 tbsp sugar 1 tsp vanilla Extra chocolate for topping Directions For the crust - preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the sister pie dough and fit into your pie tin. Parbake the crust. To make the filling, mix together the sugar, cornmeal, and salt. In a small sauce pan, melt the butter with the chocolate, coconut milk, and cocoa powder. Once it is fully melted, pour this mixture over the sugar mixture. This moment will feel overwhelming. Things will feel gloopy. Persist. Once this mixture is uniform, stir in the eggs until combined. Fold in the coconut. Pour the filling into baked crust and bake for 40-45 minutes. You should now let your pie cool completely. When you want to serve your pie, whip your heavy cream along with the sugar and vanilla, spread it atop your pie, and grate a bit of extra chocolate on top. When I think about strawberry rhubarb pie I think about Katie Merrick. On an August afternoon, in the middle of Montana, Katie walked to her fridge, pulled out half a strawberry rhubarb pie, peeled back the aluminum foil from the pie tin, and offered around the pie dish to me, Tess, and Fiona, saying nothing (but with eyes wide with excitement). Planned pie (ie all of the pie in the pie project so far) is delicious. But surprise pie? Much more delicious. Pie is high on the list of things that are amazing cold, out of the fridge, not on the day they were made (this controversial list also includes pizza, cake, soup, many more - feel free to go crazy in the comments). I have some things to say about strawberry rhubarb - I knew it had to be part of the project due to its secured spot in the world of pie, I knew I wanted to pair it with corn meal, as the rustic-ness of rhubarb screams for a rustic companion, and I knew that I liked it. I thought, though, that it would be more interesting and enjoyable to hear from Katie herself on the subject. Below you will find Katie's comments when I asked her to talk about Strawberry Rhubarb Pie. "This is my very favorite pie. I love strawberry rhubarb pie because I love summertime, I love the flavors, and I love a good latticework crust. Summertime in Vermont is a short-lived season, and when strawberry picking yields enough berries to justify using so many of them in a pie, then summer in the 802 has arrived! Rhubarb is a fun plant (fruit? Vegetable? I’m sure Clare knows but honestly I do not) (Clare here - it is a vegetable) because it is a little frightening and mysterious… it grows readily in New England climate, but what have I ever used it for besides pie? Smoothie once but that was a mistake. Strawberry rhubarb pie was the first pie for which I ever made a homemade crust rather than buying a Pillsbury Dough premade crust, and for that it will always have a special place in my heart. I particularly love a latticework crust for strawberry rhubarb because it is such a ~moist~ pie, and of course because of pioneer woman vibes." - Katie Merrick I couldn't have said it better myself...rhubarb smoothie? big mistake. Rhubarb pie on a summer afternoon in Bozeman, Montana? Delicious surprise. Strawberry Rhubarb + Cornmeal Crust Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 4 hours Ingredients For the crust: 1 round of sister pie dough + 1 round of cornmeal crust: 1 cup AP flour ⅔ cup cornmeal ¼ cup sugar 1 ½ tbsp baking powder ¼ tsp kosher salt 6 tbsps cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes ⅔ cup heavy cream For the filling: 2 cups rhubarb 2 cups strawberries 1 cup sugar 2 ½ tbsp cornstarch Directions For the crust - preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the sister pie dough with cornmeal instead of flour on your rolling ping. Parbake the bottom crust. Mix together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter, and use the cream to bring the crust together. Pat into a disc and chill while you prepare the filling. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. For the filling, , trim and chop your rhubarb into 1/4-inch pieces. Chop the strawberries to a size you like. Mix the rhubarb, strawberry, sugar, and cornstarch together. Add this to the bottom crust. Roll out the top cornmeal crust and place it gently over the top. Bake at 375 for thirty minutes and then at 300 until the juices bubble. Let cool for a few hours before eating! This lemon meringue pie came to be due to a sequence of gifts. The first was Always Home, Alice Waters' daughter's memoir. Reading about a richly aesthetic life in Berkeley, surrounded by dinners cooked over fire and eaten outside in a mild California night had me craving one thing (pie). The second gift was a surprise subscription to NYTimes cooking. I complained to a friend how I had used up free trials with all of my emails and the next day opened up my inbox to find that my complaining had compelled my good, kind friend to gift me a subscription. There is a lesson from this story. I will let you, the reader, determine it. Anyway, reading about Chez Panisse in the early 2000s and hungrily cruising the colorful pages of NY Times's densely populated pages landed me on the Chez Panisse lemon meringue pie recipe. It would be irrepresentative of my life to talk about lemon meringue pie without mentioning Amelia Bedelia. She was one of my favorite literary characters as a child, always misunderstanding directions while having fun. One of my favorite lessons (beyond "complaining will lead you to receiving the thing you desire most") that I learned from Amelia is that you can be very bad at your job, but if you end up making a fabulous lemon meringue pie for your employer, you will be just fine. To honor Amelia's love of chaos, I decided to put a bit of rosemary in the crust. I loved it. The other people who ate the pie didn't notice it. This post has two pies because I really don't like lemon meringue pie. I respect it as a cultural icon. I love the whim of a mess of toasted meringue. I like the process of making custard (due to my love of ice cream). However, lemon is my favorite flavor and I often feel sad that the pie it is most connected to is lemon meringue. I made this second pie a week after the lemon meringue to remind myself exactly what I want out of a lemon pie. The base is whipped lemon (more a mousse than a custard) and the topping is simple whipped cream. To me, that is all a lemon dessert should be. A neutral dairy base with over the top lemon flavor. Maybe some rosemary in the crust. Chez Panisse Lemon Meringue Pie
Recipe from NYT Cooking Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 4 hours Ingredients 1 Round of pie dough For the filling: 2 Meyer lemons 2 eggs 3 egg yolks 6 tbsp sugar 3 tbsp salted butter, cut in 3 pieces 3 tbsp unsalted butter, cut in 3 pieces For the meringue: 3 egg whites, at warm room temperature ¼ tsp cream of tartar 6 tbsp superfine sugar ½ tsp vanilla extract Directions For the filling, grate the zest from the lemons into a bowl; strain in the lemon juice. In a saucepan, beat the eggs, yolks and sugar until just mixed. Stir in the lemon mixture, then the six tablespoons of butter. Cook, stirring constantly, over low to medium heat, until the mixture comes together and thickens enough to coat a spoon. Remove from heat, allow to stand five minutes, then whisk briefly to smooth. Set aside. For the crust - preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line the rolled out and briefly frozen shell with aluminum foil, weight with beans or pie weights and bake for 20 minutes, or until set and dry looking. Remove the weights and foil, turn the heat down to 350 and continue baking until shell is golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool slightly. Spread the prepared filling in the shell and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the filling is just set. Remove pie and turn oven to 375. For the meringue, beat the egg whites until frothy, add the cream of tartar and continue beating until rounded peaks form. Beat in sugar and vanilla. Spread the meringue over the filling, making sure it meets the edges of the crust to make a seal. Swirl in a design with a knife or spatula and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the meringue is lightly browned. Allow to cool completely, from one to two hours, but do not refrigerate. At the time, this pie was delicious because of the combination of rich tahini and chocolate with light and dainty mascarpone. To some, the pun in the name made it more delicious. To others, it didn't. Now, on April 13th, this pie seems delicious because it represents a time when a themed dinner (this particular themed meal was for an Oscar's watch party) with a group of friends was regular. The act of texting with Leslie (who was in charge of the meal's frisee salad on a Sunday morning and discussing vinaigrette options, or of asking August to switch out the guitar strings on our guitar during a commercial break, or performing my typical dance of impolitely begging everyone to leave because I "had to get up and go to work tomorrow" feels far, far away. The menu for the Oscars party was: Ford vs. Ferrari vs. Frisee salad paraSliters with Greta Gherkins relish Once Upon a Thyme in Hollywood Sliders Irishman Coffee Affogato and a mOscarpone pie It doesn't matter who won the Oscar pool! I guessed with my heart/aesthetic nature (for the more discrete categories) instead of my brain as I always do and I lost! The pie was wonderful. It is a decadent pie. If you abstractly like the idea of tahini in a pie, you will love this pie. If you know tahini and you hear the ingredients of this pie and think "no thanks, that sounds like a thick pie," you will not like this pie. If you don't have a stance on tahini, order some online and pick a side! Tahini, chocolate mousse, mOscarpone Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: a long afternoon Ingredients 1 Round of pie dough 1/2 cup tahini 12 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped 1 tsp vanilla extract Pinch of salt 3 cups cold heavy cream 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup mascarpone Chocolate shavings Directions I parbaked my pie crust, but I am not sure it was necessary. If you have time, bake your crust off a bit in the oven and let it cool. If not, alas! Spread the tahini along the crust. Melt the chocolate in your microwave (it is 2020 just do it! do it slowly), and add the vanilla and salt. Bring 1 cup of the cream to boil in a heavy, small saucepan. Mix cream and chocolate in a large bowl, whisking vigorously. In a separate bowl, beat 2 cups cream and sugar in to stiff peaks. Fold into chocolate mixture once chocolate mixture has cooled. Pour mousse on top of tahini and spread out elegantly. Chill until set, about 6 hours. Spread mascarpone on top of chilled pie, in a pattern of your choosing. Sprinkle chocolate shavings over the top. Include pun, even if not oscars season. This pie is important because of its decadent crust. Putting ground, toasted nuts in a pie crust is something that everyone should do once in their life. Twice, even. Pecan pie, to me, is pretty bad. I tend to turn my nose up at desserts that rely on the heavy thickness of nuts to make themselves delicious. However, the brandy in this particular pie does cut the heaviness in a surprising way. You have already read my intense opinion about this phenomenal crust. I also think there is incredible romance to pairing a sickly sweet pie with a completely un-sweetened dollop of whip cream. I will leave the final decision of pecan pie's value up to the reader. Pecan Crust, Pecan Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2-3 hours Recipe from Sister Pie Ingredients For the toasted pecan pie dough: 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 cup ground toasted pecans 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 teaspoon granulated sugar 8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted European-style butter For the filling: 2/3 cup turbinado sugar 1/2 stick unsalted butter, cubed 1/2 cup maple syrup 1/4 cup honey 2 tablespoons fine yellow cornmeal 3 large eggs, room temp 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 tbsp brandy 1/2 tsp kosher salt 1 tsp turbinado sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour 1 1/2 cups whole pecans, toasted 1 large egg, beaten Directions To begin, fill a 1/4 cup measure with water, remove two tablespoons, replace with apple cider vinegar. Combine the flour, pecans, salt, and sugar in a pastry blender. Pulse in the butter until small lumps form. Add the water-vinegar mixture all at once and pulse until barely coming together. Remove the dough from the bowl, place it on a lightly floured counter, and gently pat it into a 2-inch-thick disc, working quickly to seal any broken edges before wrapping it tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours or, ideally, overnight. Preheat your oven to 450°F. To pre-bake the crust, roll out your crust, place it into your pie tin, and use your fingers to crimp the crust. Let your pie crust sit in the freezer while you tear off a square of aluminum foil that is slightly larger than the pie shell and gather your pie weights. Remove the crust from the freezer, place in the foil, and fill the crust with the pie weights (they should come all the way up to the crimps) and place the pie pan on a baking sheet. Transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake for 25 to 27 minutes. Check for doneness by peeling up a piece of foil—the crimps should be light golden brown. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and transfer to a cooling rack. After 6 minutes, carefully remove the foil and beans. Your crust is now ready for filling. Reduce the heat in your oven to 325°F. Now, make your filling. Place 2/3 cup turbinado sugar and the cubed butter in a small, heatproof bowl. Combine the maple syrup and honey in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan and slowly bring to a boil. Continue boiling until the mixture reads 225°F on a candy thermometer. Pour the maple-honey mixture over the turbinado sugar and butter and stir until the butter has completely melted. Whisk in the cornmeal. Set aside to cool slightly. In a separate bowl, whisk the 3 eggs with the vanilla, brandy, and salt. I put WAY less brandy than suggested and still found it to pack a punch. Consider yourself warned. Slowly pour the cooled butter mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Place the blind-baked pecan crust on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle the bottom of the crust with the turbinado sugar–flour mixture, then spread the toasted pecans evenly on top. Brush the crimped edge with the beaten egg. Carefully pour in the filling until it reaches the bottom of the crimps. Use a knife or fork to poke down any pecans that aren’t submerged in the filling. Transfer the baking sheet with the pie on it to the oven and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until puffed around the edges and only slightly jiggly in the center when shaken. |