Rumor has it there's going to be a no-holds-barred culinary throwdown here at Scienceblogs in honor of Pi Day. Personally, I need little excuse to make a pie. And the staffer needs little excuse to eat pie - particularly pecan pie. So here is my entry. . . .the "Yes, PeCan" Pi.
As pies go, this is a simple one that can handle some imprecision. It's a little different every time I do it. And in the spirit of 3.141592-oh-whatever-who-cares, I embrace freely rounding off quantities whenever I feel like it.* In fact, I used my ubercool but uberimprecise Equal Measure to make this Pi:
"Yes, PeCan" Pi
Heat oven to 375 degrees F (~191 degrees Celsius).
Prepare a pie crust (use your family recipe. You can buy one if you absolutely must, but I don't want to hear about it).
In a bowl, mix:
3 large eggs (approximately the volume of the brain of a T. rex)
just shy of 2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp turbinado sugar (sub more granulated sugar if you don't have it)
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup unsalted melted butter (about one hundred fifty thousand poppy seeds' worth)
3/4 cup dark corn syrup (about five thousand drops of water's worth)
1/4 cup Lyle's Golden Syrup (sub more dark corn syrup if you don't have it)
Beat all of this for several minutes by hand with a whisk. Stir in:
about 1 cup pecan halves (about the amount of water in a bus-sized cumulus cloud)
1 Tbsp bourbon
Pour filling into crust. Bake 35-40 minutes (until filling is set but not cracked). You can cover the crust with foil until the last 15 minutes of baking to keep it from getting too dark.
Voila! It's the Pi of change we've been waiting for!
*This might explain why my pecan pies don't always turn out - although in my defense, correlation does not equal causation. (The staffer says we need to eat a larger n.)
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That looks fucking delicious! I bet it goes totes awsum with some motherfucking Jameson!
Now that is the kind of pie whose deliciousness we can all believe in.
And LOL @ "the staffer." Did you choose that on purpose for the double meaning, or do I have a particularly dirty mind?
Don't get to Carya away with the nut puns.
Arvind, I refuse to try to fathom what you mean. It's his job, that's all. ;)
CPP: just imagine if you made it with Jameson!
I had to! It's in honor of our new President's big week o'Science!
I will try this recipe.
I made thousands of pecan pies for a restaurant in NJ, using their (owners' grandmother's) secret recipe. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this recipe would be burned into my memory; I had no reason to actually write it down. It was a wonderful recipe. It turned me from one who did not care for pecan pies into one who craves them.
I have forgotten it.
This recipe is not the same, but as I wander the earth in search of pie, it certainly looks worth the effort of baking.
Oh, yes. I can definitely go for a big slice of that one.
A thought: I'm a very big fan of cinnamon honey roasted pecans. It might be interesting to add a bit of cinnamon to a pecan pie.
Great recipe and great name, but I do have to point out that it's (pe-CAHN) and not (PEE-can).