Jo Gilks’ Chocolate Pecan Pie
Recipe source: Green & Black’s Chocolate Recipes
Preparation time: 35 min, + 25 min chilling
Cooking time: 1 h 25 min
Use: 28 cm loose-based tart tin
Serves: 8 – 10
PASTRY
275 g plain flour
75 g icing sugar
150 g unsalted butter, cold
2 large egg yolks
FILLING
275 g dark chocolate, minimum 60 % cocoa solids, broken into pieces
200 g shelled pecans, chopped
3 large eggs, beaten
225 g soft brown sugar
250 ml evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
50 g butter, melted
METHOD
To make the pastry, sift together the flour and icing sugar and cut the butter into cubes.
Place in a food processor and mix together, adding the egg yolks at the end to form a dough.
Carefully roll out the pastry – it needs to be very thin. You will need to use a lot of flour.
Lift into the tart tin and allow a little extra, as pastry tends to shrink.
Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180 C/gas mark 4.
Pierce the dough with a fork, and bake the pastry case blind by covering with parchment or greaseproof paper and baking beans for about 15 minutes.
Remove the beans and paper and return the pastry to the oven for a further 10 minutes or until it is a very light golden colour.
Remove from the oven and set aside while you make the filling. Reduce the oven temperature to 160 C/gas mark 3.
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Mix together the remaining ingredients for the filling, and stir in the melted chocolate.
Spoon into the pastry case and return to the oven for about an hour. Watch carefully and if necessary cover with foil to prevent burning.
Verdict
This was the first time I made this sort of pastry! J Hurrah! I’ve learnt something new today!
The pastry was lovely, but not very easy to make. Perhaps also because I’ve never made this sort of pastry before, so it was difficult to know what to expect. It was very very crumbly to start with, so I added a splash of milk to help form the dough. I think I will probably use it again when I feel like making my own pastry, rather than just using the shop bought one. This one was tastier and less fatty than the shop bought variety.
Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed with the filling. It was too sweet for our taste, and there weren’t enough pecans. I’m not sure if I like the evaporated milk. It made it quite toffee-like, and I’m not a big fan of toffee. I prefer a full-bodied chocolate flavour.
This recipe was not dissimilar to another recipe I love and often use – Chocolate Tart given to me by my friend S. The tart recipe has tastier filling, and it’s more chocolaty. I might try adding pecans to it. I’m sure it would work beautifully. Now that I mentioned it, I will post the other recipe sometime.
What I would do differently next time
Put a little less milk in the dough.
Use less sugar in the filling.
Use more pecans.
Suggestions
Try using different nuts, e.g. hazelnuts, or even a mixture of different nuts.
Serve with cream or vanilla ice-cream.
Blackberries and I 
burekaboy
/ 29 May, 2007in spite of it being your first go at making this, it looks like it turned out really well 🙂 i’d certainly have some, lol. part of cooking and baking is trying things out and then adjusting them to individual tastes; hard to tell what something is to taste like just from a recipe. next time, you may want to try making the pastry in a food processor, if you have one, and pulsing the ingredients together until you get a workable dough. it’s easier that way, especially for beginners.
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aninas
/ 29 May, 2007Thanks! 🙂
Unfortunately, I don’t have a food processor. Well, I did, but…. hm hm…. I left its bowl on top of the grill one day and it… melted… sideways (?!) Oooops! I was gutted, because I really like soup and I was using it pretty often. And I was using it to make humous! 🙂 Btw, thanks for the tips!
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aninas
/ 29 May, 2007Just wanted to add that the pastry was really yummy!
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Mariló
/ 29 May, 2007I was lucky enough to taste the cake and it was GORGEOUS!!!!!!! My children loved it too. Thank you and call me next time, if you want I can be your guinea pig!
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aninas
/ 29 May, 2007hahaa! I will, darling! Glad you enjoyed it! 😉
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burekaboy
/ 29 May, 2007lol, u sound like my friend who melts everything in sight. i’ve only done this once and it was the plastic handle on my kettle cause i completely forgot it on the stovetop! what a mess.
well, hope you can replace the bowl part of the processor. i can’t live without mine.
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lory
/ 30 May, 2007miam, une très belle tarte!!
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aninas
/ 30 May, 2007TO BUREKABOY: hahaha that’s great! you know what, we should organise & host a monthly event with this theme, inviting people to contribute the stories of their kitchen misadventures! Another one I’d like to do is on aromas while cooking. (I’ve got a post on that, btw)
TO LORY: Thanks, Lory!
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Maninas
/ 31 May, 2007TO BUREKABOY: I had an inspiration yesterday, so I wrote a poste about my kitchen catastrophe…
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womans health
/ 4 November, 2007What a great recipe for a cold snowy weekend up here in the mountains. I’ll go warm up the oven, make a pot of tea and put my apron on:-))
Great blog….Di
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