How was your Thanksgiving? I spent mine in Poland where obviously we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so no days off, no turkey, no pumpkin pie for us. However since I love all kinds of holidays I had to at least prepare some kind of traditional Thanksgiving treat for my family. I brought with me from US few packages of pecans, which by the way turned out to be extremely similar in taste and appearance to walnuts, and I prepared a pecan pie. My version is slightly different because instead of corn syrup I used honey and I added a bit of a liquor to my filling. I also used less sugar because in my opinion traditional pecan pie is way too sweet. What can I say, everyone loved it, it was very unusual kind of cake for Polish standards because we don’t usually make pies like this. That was definitely something new for my family.

Ingredients:

Sweet shortcrust pastry (prepared in a 10 in tart or pie dish):

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup (about 100 g) cold butter
1 egg yolk
4-5 Tbsp cold water
1 tsp sugar
Pinch of salt

Pecan filling:

3 beaten eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup honey
2 Tbsp brandy or dark rum
4 Tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
Pinch of salt

Into a food processor add flour and cut butter. Process few seconds until combine.

Add egg yolk and few 4-5 tablespoons of cold water.

Process few seconds until the dough resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Transfer to a board and knead a second just until combined. Wrap dough in foil and leave in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Remove the dough from the fridge and let it come to a room temperature. On a slightly floured board roll the dough so it can fit into a dish. Wrap the dough around a rolling pin…

…transfer to a baking dish and unroll.

Shape to fit the dish and cut off the edges. Using fork make holes in the bottom of a pie.

Cover with aluminum foil and spread beans on the bottom.  Bake 10 min in 450°F. After that time carefully remove foil and beans and bake another 5 min.

Meanwhile melt butter in the small pot.

Add sugar, honey, brandy or dark rum, vanilla essence and a pinch of salt. Stir and bring to a boil. Simmer few min and let it cool slightly.

In a bowl beat 3 eggs until fluffy.

Add the honey caramel mixture and beat until combines with eggs.

Chop half of the pecans and add to the filling. spread the filling inside the baked shortcrust pastry.

Arrange the rest of the pecans on the top of the pie. Bake 30-35 min in the oven preheated to 350°F.