Inspired Pie...

I’ve been taking a trip down memory lane this past week. My sister needed my grandmother’s pecan pie recipe. Every other pecan pie she’s tried to make has flopped. No pie recipe came close to our Nanny’s pecan pie. Nanny was a pie whisperer for sure. When we visited Nanny and Granddaddy’s farm, there was always a pie cooling on the dryer down in the sleeping porch. Butterscotch, chocolate meringue, pumpkin, you name it. 

Recipe cards from my grandmothers and mother.

But Ann wanted the pecan pie recipe and I have my mom’s recipe card box. I looked through all the cards and found recipes for apple pie, date-pecan pie, Nanny’s chocolate meringue pie, lemon icebox pie, strawberry fluff pie, pineapple pie, ancient jello pie recipes clipped from magazines but no pecan pie.

 

The news really disappointed my sister. As Ann said, “there were just too many recipes just in Nanny’s head.”  You can see how we both took it.

My sister is the crying three month old. I am the aghast toddler.

I cried even longer. I found Nanny’s candy recipes made with Karo corn syrup, and all her cookie recipes.  I’ve been trying to date her recipes. My books are set in WWII and I knew corn syrup was rationed then. I also found out the pecan pie recipe with corn syrup was supposedly invented during the Depression. Pecan pie and candy was around before then, just not with the infamous corn ingredient.

There are other syrups around. After reading a lot about arsenic in rice products, naturally occurring but still a concern, I choose to use cane syrup, homemade or not, most of the time. 

I also made sure to use less syrup than called for and MORE pecans. Again, it’s called PECAN pie, not syrup pie! I know, I know. Some folks like it gooey! But I like it nutty.

Silly me. I thought I was a purist when it comes to pecan pie. I don’t like it with chocolate or rum, no raisins or sweet potatoes or coconut. There’s a reason pecan pie is called pecan pie!

But this week I’ve been revisiting more of the Little House books. Between Jan's post on The Long Winter and today's version and Virginia's post about bravely creating a new pie recipe, I started having visions of maple syrup and the inspiration to create a recipe the way my grandmother did. 

In her head. 

I already had maple in my head. But what could replace gooey corn syrup? Only maple syrup seemed a little strong. And then it hit me. I love using condensed milk in my pumpkin pie for its smooth texture and balance. What if....

Pecan Maple Cream Pie! I'd heard of maple cream but never made one. I'd heard of pecan pie made with maple syrup but not with the cream.  To be on the safe side, to see if what I came up with would work, I searched the Internets far and wide. A lot of recipes were complicated or had cornstarch or heavy cream.

What was in the pantry? Now to the faux part, the easy makin' part. I would use condensed milk rather than sugar and cream.

I found an original pecan-pie-without-the-corn-syrup recipe on The Kitchn site. Thank you, Emma Christensen. and adapted it. I'm not as brave as my grandmother. I wanted it to at least have a chance of success.  

Cakey Crust: I used an individual pack of Pamela’s baking mix (about a cup)  and about three tablespoons cold butter to make my crust in the food processor.  I wanted a crust just a little on the cakey side. Just pulse til combined. But you can use any gluten free crust as well. 

Filling: Then I mixed up the ingredients for the filling. Oh, the smell. Oh, the wonder. Oh the prayers it would turn out. And it did! Thanks to a lot of inspiration from my grandmother and friends and blogs. Now to work up my courage to try to recreate Nanny's original pecan pie.

Pecan Maple Faux Cream Pie

1 can sweetened condensed milk

½ can 100%  maple syrup (yes, I used the can rather than dirty a measuring cup.)

3 large eggs, whisked

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

2-2.5 cups halved pecans.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the condensed milk, maple syrup, eggs, salt, and vanilla  in a large mixing bowl. Whisk until smooth and mixed well.

Add pecans and stir again.

Pour pecan mixture over pie crust and spread evenly.

Place pie on a baking sheet to catch any drips, place in middle of the oven, and bake for 50-55 minutes.

The top crust of pecans should be deep brown and firm when tapped and interior is 200 degrees.

Cool and refrigerate. Cover lightly and use within a few days.

So, what recipe do you wish you had written down from a relative or friend or restaurant? Are you a pecan pie purist or pie purist for that matter?

Book Food: The Little House Connection

First in an occasional series on the food we love in the books we adore.

Jan has been posting on Facebook about the early October blizzard that hit South Dakota so hard last week. She was brave enough to read The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder DURING the storm.

In balmy North Carolina, I was reading The Children's Blizzard, a non-fiction account of the storms Laura wrote about in her book. As gripping as can be. Interview with author David Laskin about researching The Children's Blizzard

Between Jan's posts about how the storm affected her state and The Children's Blizzard, well, I had to go back and read Long Winter too. So many things we don't get as kids, just read over them without the significance jumping out at us.  That's why we need to reread our childhood favorites.

How I loved the descriptions of food in the Little House books.  I remember the roasted pig's tale from Little House in the Big Woods and the wedding cake tasting dry in Laura's mouth in These Happy Golden Years.

But other folks have differing memories. Farmer Boy says FOOD to a lot of readers, all the way through the story.  Others remembered different things out of Little House in the Big Woods like headcheese and snow candy making.

Actually, lots of folks loved Farmer Boy the best. What's with that? I was bored with it. It was about a boy. I spent my summers on a farm and loved it. Didn't teach me anything new.

Give me the romance of These Happy Golden Years, even when it was a hard-won, practical version of romance.

We interrupt this blog post for a Little House Smackdown. What's your favorite book in the series? Did you love Farmer Boy? Dislike Happy Golden Years? I'll take you on! 

Deep breath. Back to LH food.  I'm glad I wasn't the only one who tried to make snow candy with Log Cabin syrup. And totally failed.   I found a recipe that works from The Little House Cookbook. The Little House Cookbook can be found here  

But it uses molasses and brown sugar. Hmmm, I wanted the maple candy from the Big Woods not the molasses candy from the prairie days.  I searched the Internets and found something totally incredible. A recipe that uses maple syrup and butter but, more amazingly, VANILLA ICE CREAM for the snow. Thank you, grouprecipes.com Here's the recipe for maple candy on vanilla ice cream snow.

So what IS your favorite Little House book? Have you lived through a blizzard? Made snow candy? Or wanted to know the real story behind Laura Ingalls Wilder as a writer?

PS.

You can read my So You Think You Can Write Entry A Heart to Protect Love Inspired Historical entry 

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