Chocolate Pecan Pies

Pecan pie is one of the quickest and simplest bakes. It just requires some melting and mixing, a pastry case and oven.

You'll be relieved to know that there's no need blind bake the pastry. I tried it both ways and baking blind makes no difference for this recipe. If anything, the larger pie cuts better without blind baking.

The only point of contention might be the copious lashings of syrup that form the basis of the filling. In the States, corn syrup is often used for pecan pies, but is (thankfully) mostly unavailable in the UK (look up the effects of HFCS - worse for your health than granulated sugar).

So golden and maple syrups are decent substitutes. Excessive golden syrup would make this a treacle tart, so to avoid that and to compliment the darker chocolate tones, some of the sweetness comes from dark muscovado sugar.

Chocolate Pecan Pies

Makes one large or 15 small pies

75g butter 

100g plain chocolate

100ml golden syrup
100ml maple syrup 

125g muscovado sugar 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

3 eggs

125g pecan halves 

1 recipe pastry to line a 23cm (9 inch) pie dish

1. Grease the pie dish. Preheat the oven to 190°c.

2. Melt together the butter and plain chocolate; cool slightly. Using a hand mixer, beat in the golden/maple syrups, muscovado sugar, salt and eggs. Stir in the pecans and pour mixture into the prepared dish/es.

3. Bake in a moderate oven for 40-50 minutes. Cool slightly and serve with whipped cream.

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