11/15/202004/06/2024 Bettina Zabel

Maple Pie with a Salted Pecan Crust

Easter, Fall Season, Holiday, Recipe, Spring Season, Sweets, Thanksgiving

A Delicious Pie that is Usually Unknown

As part of our children’s home school studies, we wanted to incorporate life skills, like baking, and while learning about Canada, we found out about their obvious love of maple syrup. I say obvious because I LOVE maple syrup… so of course, it seemed obvious to me. 

Canada exports huge amounts of maple syrup and they get pretty serious about it, but beyond pancakes and waffles, what does one make with maple syrup? 

Well, there are several things actually, and many use maple syrup in place of sugar for various recipes. I use it in place of molasses, not that molasses isn’t great, I just never have it and so maple syrup has become a staple. Anyway, one recipe that intrigued me was for a Maple Syrup Pie.

Let’s Talk Pie

Before I go any further, before this pie, I had only made one other and it was a pumpkin pie. Making the crust made all the difference! I guess there is something about homemade pie because, until this first pie, I told everyone I didn’t like pie. I mean, it was ok but it wasn’t cake and it definitely wasn’t cookies… well this pie changed my mind! I now love pie!

A Maple Pie… yes, please!

There are many different recipes for Maple Syrup pies and there are some that are just called Maple pies… they seem different though the name is often swapped. Maple pies seem to have more flour in the mixture and have a lighter color, while Maple Syrup pies are darker and have very little if any, flour in the mixture.

I made a few and tweaked the recipe and this is now a pie I LOVE! It is not difficult, even the crust is easy, and as many people haven’t heard of a Maple pie or a Maple Syrup pie, it will probably be a hit at any gathering. Though the pie itself might remind you of a fall pie, maple syrup season hits in spring, so this could work at an Easter gathering too!

I have created a salted pecan crust that I like with this pie but obviously, you can use any pie crust you would like. A traditional butter pie crust would work great!

What You Will Need

Ingredients for the Crust

• all-purpose flour
• salted pecans
• brown sugar
• butter (I use frozen butter)
• ice cold water (3-6 tbsps, maybe a little more)

Ingredients for the Filling

• pure maple syrup
• butter
• heavy cream
• all-purpose flour
•  eggs

Here’s a Few Things to Know

• The pie crust is not traditional with the pecans in it but it really has a lovely look to it, and it is unique! You can swap out salted walnuts for the pecans, and perhaps other nuts too but walnuts is the only other one I have tried.
• Most pie crusts call for chilled butter but I use frozen butter. Just cut your stick into tablespoons and put it into the freezer overnight. Put it into an airtight container to make sure it doesn’t collect any smell from the freezer. I know that sounds strange… but trust me. Using a food processor is what makes using the frozen butter fine, however, if you are in a pinch for time, using regular chilled butter is great too.
• Speaking about food processors, there’s nothing wrong with making pie crust with a food processor… and don’t let anyone tell you differently! I have a Ninja Mega Kitchen System and honestly LOVE it. It has a dough hook and also comes with a blender and smoothie cup. Since getting this thing, my family makes fruit smoothies every day and we really have put this Ninja and its attachments through the ringer… and it still works great. We try to buy American-made products when we can but a Waring Food Processor, which is made in the USA, runs at almost $800 and it doesn’t come with a blender or smoothie maker. I am sure it is worth it but at this point, it is out of my price range. 
• Often when adding flour to liquid it can be hard to get clumps out, so to help with this, you will need to put some of the warm liquid into a mixing bowl with the flour and stir. The liquid with thicken but it won’t be clumpy. Once mixed, pour it back into the maple syrup.
• As the maple syrup is heated, you will want to temper your eggs. If you just pour the eggs into the mixture you will essentially have scrambled eggs in a pool of maple syrup. To temper the eggs, you will spoon some of the hot liquid into the eggs and stir, and you’ll do this until you’ve spooned in about half of the hot mixture. Remember not to rush this, if you don’t do this, you could have bits of scrambled eggs in your pie.
• Alternatively, you could skip the heating of the maple syrup, which would eliminate the need to temper the eggs. I have done this too and the pie tasted good, however, the texture was not as “firm” and it didn’t have a beautiful layer on the top of the pie. I recommend heating the syrup but if you are unsure about tempering the eggs, you could try this method.
• You can embellish your pie crust however you would like. The pie I did here is not really embellished at all at the lip of the pie. I just took a knife and cut a straight edge all the way around, but I did use some of the extra pie crust to make the acorns shown on the top of the pie. I know they look like leaves. I thought I had a maple leaf cookie cutter but this was the closest thing I had. Anyway, you can pinch your pie crust, add some to the top (just take measures against burning), or add embellishments like I did.
• Make sure to poke holes into the bottom of the pie
• The crust makes nice little cookies or biscuits that you might serve at a tea party. You could just make the crust for that. I ended up making about 20 with the leftover pie crust and my family ate them all in about 20 minutes, other than the three I had put on the pie.

Let’s Make a Pie!

• In a food processor, pulse together flour, nuts, and sugar until nuts are finely ground,
• Add sliced, frozen (or cold) butter and pulse until it becomes like clumped sand.

• Then with the food processor on, slowly pour in water through the opening. The mixture should come together. If it does not, remove the top and stir with a fork to move the mixture around then put the top back on and pulse until it comes together. 
• Pull the dough out of the processor and place it onto a piece of plastic wrap. Enclose the dough and push it into a disk. Place in the fridge for at least 1 hour but can be overnight.

• Place the maple syrup into a pan and put on medium heat. Allow it to boil and then, simmer for 5 minutes.
• Remove the syrup from the heat and stir in the butter until melted. 
• Stir in the cream

• In a small bowl pour in about a cup of the hot liquid and then add the flour. Stir until mixed and add it back to the pot

• Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl until smooth. Add some of the hot liquid into the eggs, tablespoon or so at a time. This tempers the eggs so you don’t get scrambled eggs. Once you have mixed in about half of the hot mixture, pour it back into the pot.

• Mix until smooth and set aside

• Preheat the oven to 350 and take out the pie crust
• On a floured surface begin to roll out the dough. If it is too hard to do that, ball it back up and attempt in a few minutes.

• Place the rolled dough into the prepared pie pan (I just lightly grease mine with butter) and press into the pie pan. 
• Poke fork holes into the bottom of the pie crust to allow for hot air to escape.
• Cut or embellish the dough how you would like

• Pour the warm liquid into the pie crust
• Bake at 350℉ for 50-60 minutes (until set). 50 minutes has worked for me but all ovens are different. The pie might be a bit jiggly but it will be solid.

• To add top embellishments, to simply use up any extra pie crust, or if you are just looking for some tea time treats, roll out the dough and use a cutter to cut shapes. Place on cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.
• If you want to add some to the top of your pie you can do it during the baking phase or even as it goes into the oven, but in a semi-soft pie like this, I just gently push them into the surface like shown below.

• It is best to allow the pie to cool for a couple of hours before serving

Enjoy Your Pie!

I hope you enjoy this pie! Don’t forget to head over to Instagram or Facebook and mention me @bemandfam when you post pictures of your awesome pies so I can see them! Feel free to comment below with any questions or tell me what your favorite pie is!

BEM + Fam 🙂

P.S. Don’t forget to print out the recipe below for future use!

 

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