Pumpkin Pecan Pie
Could it really be the best of both worlds?
Time: 4 hours + Overnight
Difficulty: 3/5
Ingredient Availability: 5/5
Both pecan and pumpkin pies are somewhat staples of holiday cooking. Some people have a significant preference for one over the other. Personally, I like them both equally. So, when I found this recipe in The Baking Bible, I knew I had to make it. Let’s see how these two work together.
Key Ingredients and Omissions:
Pie Crust Ingredients
The cream cheese is new to me for a pie crust
Pecan Pie Filling
Pretty standard for a pecan pie
Pumpkin Pie Filling
Don’t know what else there would be in a pumpkin pie.
Because this pie is pretty much two in one, there are a lot of ingredients that go into it. However, none of the ingredients are hard to find. I didn’t leave anything out and I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about any of the ingredients. Maybe use a butter that you particularly enjoy, but the rest of the ingredients can be pretty standard. One thing that’s interesting about the pie dough is that it used cream cheese and vinegar initially it, which certainly is new to me.
Tools:
Deep 9-9.5” Pie plate
Mixing Bowls
Food Processor (optional)
Freezer bag
Immersion Blender
Cooking Review:
Preparing Butter for Dough: 45 minutes
The day before I was ready to bake the pie, I started on the dough by cutting up the butter and putting it in the freezer for about half an hour while I prepared the rest of the ingredients for the dough.
Making the dough: 13 Minutes
To make the dough, I mixed the cream cheese with the flour, salt, and baking powder in the food processor. That mixture was processed until pretty homogenous. Next, I added the butter and processed until the butter was broken down into pea sized pieces. The heavy cream and vinegar were added next and processed just to evenly moisten the flour mixture. The dough, which will not hold together easily at this point, was transferred to a large plastic bag and kneaded until it held together. The dough was then put in the refrigerator to rest overnight.
Roll out Dough & Fill Pie Plate: 12 minutes
The next day, I took the dough out of the refrigerator and immediately rolled out out as large and evenly as possible without getting too thin on a floured surface. I know I can’t be the only one who has a hard time with pie doughs, so this is part of the reason why this recipe has an increased difficulty score. That is also why I know that letting the dough soften slightly would only make it more difficult to prevent sticking when I’m ready to transfer the dough to the pie plate. Once rolled out, I put the dough into the pie plate, trimmed, and folded the edges of the dough under. I barely had enough dough to do this, but it still wasn’t enough to prevent the dough from slumping in the plate.
Pecan Filling: 1 hour
To make the pecan filling, I combined the corn syrup, brown sugar, egg yolks, heavy cream, butter, and salt in a saucepan and heated it over medium low heat. It took about 10 minutes for the mixture to thicken and homogenize, as I stirred it constantly. I measured the temperature to ensure it was at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit before pouring into a measuring cup through a strainer. The vanilla was stirred in next. I chopped up the pecans and sprinkled them over the bottom of the pie crust, before pouring the filling over the nuts. The pie was transferred to the oven at 350 to bake for about 35 minutes, until the temperature of the filling read at least 185. As you can see, the side of the dough fell in the pan, reducing how much pumpkin filling I could add next. I let the pie cool while I worked on the next step.
Pumpkin Filling: 1 hour 30 minutes
To make the pumpkin filling, I mixed the pumpkin, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and salt in a sauce pan over medium heat. I stirred constantly for about 5 minutes until simmering before lowering the heat and continuing to stirring until thickened, about another 5 minutes. I removed the saucepan from the heat and and used an immersion blender to add in the heavy cream and milk, followed by the egg and vanilla. I ladled as much of the pumpkin filling as I could over the pecan filling in the pie plate and put it in the oven to bake for about an hour with foil over the crust. After cooling, the pie was done.
Analysis:
I know that I couldn’t get all of the pumpkin filling to fit into this pie, but I was pretty disappointed that it just tastes like a pecan pie. I was really hoping that the two fillings would come together and make something more interesting, but the pecan pie filling really overpowers the pumping filling. The flavor was pretty good, with the pecans having a nice crunch and flavor. It is pretty sweet. I can see some thinking it’s too sweet, even. As far as the crust goes, it’s pretty tender with nothing much crunch. Its flavor isn’t very pronounced either, but that could just be because the fillings are way more flavorful. With the extra pumpkin filling, I did fill some cupcake tins and added it to some puff pastry to see what it’s like on its own. The pumpkin filling is pretty good and has a more reasonable amount of sweetness which is well balance by the spices. In all, I would say that this pie is a unique idea that’s more of a gimmick than a great dessert. It’s cool to say that you’re having two pies in one, but I think you’re better off either making two pies (you’ll probably have enough ingredients leftover to do so), or just pick one so you can get the best of either. I’m going to give this recipe a 6/10. If you want something sweet, you’ll enjoy it. It’s just not something that I think is quite worth the time and effort.
