Holiday cooks | Pecan pie with local flavor

What if cooking for Christmas Eve became child’s play? Every week until Christmas, we offer you a simple and festive recipe that will make young and old alike want to get their hands dirty. This week: a pecan pie.

Véronique Larocque
Press

The pie factory: this is how illustrator and author Josée Bisaillon nicknames the day that was devoted to preparing desserts for the holiday season when she was a child. “Since I was little, every Christmas, the tradition has been to have a table of pies of all kinds, including my mother’s famous pecan pie. ”

This tart, which her mother Gisèle used to make into tarts, contains an ingredient that Josée Bisaillon particularly likes: maple syrup. “My family has a sugar bush. […] She’s been in my family for generations and generations. Maple syrup is very important to us. We cook a lot with it. ”

This love for this local product is reflected in his book In my kitchen, published this fall by Fonfon editions. Recipes and family stories are intertwined in this book where the illustration replaces the photo.

“I realized while making this book that I cook exactly as I illustrate, that is to say that my most beautiful illustrations often appear when I have made a mistake”, says the mother of three children. who, thanks to his book, wants to show young people that trial and error is part of a normal process in the kitchen.

Recipe

Preparation: 20 minutes
Rest: 10 minutes
Cooking: 40 minutes
Yield: 1 pie

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (90 g) brown sugar
• 2 tbsp. (30 mL) cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cup (375 mL) maple syrup
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups (160 g) toasted pecans, chopped
• 1 pastry dough, store-bought or homemade (see recipe below)
• 1/2 cup (40 g) halved pecans, toasted, for garnish

Preperation

• 1. Preheat the oven to 350 ° F (180 ° C).
• 2. In a saucepan, combine the brown sugar, cornstarch and maple syrup.
• 3. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and boil over low heat for 5 minutes.
• 4. Remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes.
• 5. Add the eggs and pecans. Mix well.
• 6. Pour the mixture over the pastry crust and add the pecans in half, to make it nice.
• 7. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the mixture is set.
• 8. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream or freeze pie to reheat during the holidays.

Pastry

Preparation: 30 minutes
Rest: 30 minutes
Cooking: 15 minutes
Yield: 1 low

Ingredients

• 1 cup (150 g) all-purpose flour
• 1 pinch of salt
• 6 tbsp. (90 g) cold butter, cubed
• 3 tbsp. (45 mL) ice water

Preperation

• 1. In a bowl previously placed in the freezer for 10 minutes, mix the flour with the salt.
• 2. Using your fingertips, sand the cold butter into the flour until no lumps of butter are visible. Do this step quickly so that the butter always stays cold and does not tend to melt.
• 3. Form a fountain, ie a hole in the center of the mixture, and pour the ice water into it.
• 4. Mix quickly until the dough forms a ball.
• 5. Wrap the ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. It is possible to make the dough a few days before baking the pie.
• 6. Preheat the oven to 350 ° F (180 ° C).
• 7. Using a rolling pin, roll out dough to 1/8 inch (3-4 mm) thickness on a floured surface.
• 8. Line a 23 cm (9 in) diameter pie dish.
• 9. Prick the dough evenly with a fork.
• 10. Cook the pastry for 15 minutes.