Archive for: pecan pie

Impossible Pecan Pie Cupcakes

Impossible Pecan Pie Cupcakes are the perfect dessert for anyone who loves pecan pie, whether you’re looking for an easier version of your favorite dessert or simply want to try a new twist on it. This recipe is based on the same idea as my Impossible Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes. Impossible pie is a “back of the box” recipe for baking mixes, like bisquick. These “pies” are primarily pie filling, to which a small amount of the baking mix is added. As the “pie” bakes, a soft, crust-like outer layer around the filling – delivering a pie that you don’t need a traditional pastry crust for. In my Pumpkin Pie Cupcake recipe, I incorporated enough flour and leavening into a pumpkin-rich batter. Here, I use the same technique to transform a pecan pie batter into a batch of easy-to-make and easy-to-serve Impossible Pecan Pie Cupcakes.

The filling for these cupcakes is based on the filling for my Maple Pecan Pie, a pecan pie recipe which uses maple syrup instead of corn syrup to provide the syrupy sweet liquid for the filling. I added just enough flour to hold the batter together, along with baking powder and baking soda to help the cupcakes rise in the oven. The filling is very liquidy, almost like a crepe batter. Pecans are placed into each prepared muffin cup and batter is poured on top of them before baking.

As the cupcakes bake, the pecans rise to the top of the cupcake, just as they do in a traditional pecan pie. The base of the cupcake is an extremely moist cake that captures the flavors of maple syrup, brown sugar and vanilla. The pecan layer is crunchy, and if you use lightly salted pecans, it’ll have a sweet-salty finish to it. It is all the flavors of pecan pie in a completely new, single-serving package. It’s a great twist on a classic fall favorite.

I recommend baking these with muffin wrappers and not simply greasing your muffin cups because the cake is so moist it might be difficult to get them out.  I typically serve these plain, or warmed up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The recipe makes 16 cupcakes, so it is enough to serve a crowd, but these keep well (they’re best stored in the refrigerator after the first day) and make a great snack even if you’re not going to entertain with them.

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Maple Pecan Pie

Pecan pie is not my favorite fall pie. That spot is permanently taken by pumpkin pie. But it becomes boring to have only one type of pie around, especially during the holidays. I vary my options with apple pie, lemon meringue pie and, as in this case, pecan pie.

Corn syrup is the traditional base for a pecan pie, but I didn’t want to use it in mine and looked for alternatives. While it provides a pleasing consistency to this type of pie, corn syrup is just too sweet and too one-dimensional for my tastes. It doesn’t add all that much to the pie, and lack of depth is one of the things that I don’t like to see in a pecan pie. I found one promising recipe in an old issue of Gourmet that used maple syrup instead of corn syrup. Maple and pecans go amazingly well together, so this recipe sounded like a winner right off the bat. The ingredient list is short and the method here is dead easy. The only real change I made to the original recipe was in the nuts. I used more nuts than the recipe called for and used pecans that had been previously roasted and salted. Pecan pie is definitely a sweet dessert, but salty-sweet is better in my book and using slightly salty pecans gives the pie a nice balance.

The combination of all the elements worked out beautifully. The hint of saltiness that the roasted/salted pecans added to the filling really took the edge off the sweetness of the syrup base, just like sea salt does to a caramel. The maple syrup gave the pie a fantastic fall flavor and made for a much more interesting dessert than a corn syrup-based pie. My standard maple syrup is “Grade B” because it has a richer color than the “Grade A” or “light amber” syrups. That said, any type of real maple syrup (not maple-flavored pancake syrup, which is just corn syrup) will work for this recipe. For the crust, I used my standard all-butter recipe. It doesn’t take long to make and only needs about 30 minutes to chill before working it. To save time, however, you can start with a frozen pie crust that has been defrosted.

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