Weekend Baking: Pecan Pie

Every week I look forward to reading Lisa & Sarah's "Weekend Baking" posts on their blog A Spoonful of Sugar. Most of the time my baking is done through the week, so I've never felt that I qualified to participate in their weekend baking party... but yesterday (Sunday) I made Pecan Pie!

Last Christmas I made some Caramel Pecan Tarts from a recipe in Better Homes & Gardens' Christmas booklet. They were lovely, but a bit more effort (and fattening - white chocolate in the pastry!) than I was planning to put in.. so I hunted for the recipe that one of my aunts passed on to me recently and made that instead. I used a pre-made sweet flan/pie shell to save time (I was also making muesli bars and hot chocolate for the kids). 

There was slightly more filling than the pie shell could handle, so I cut some (also frozen - how lazy am I?) shortcrust pastry to fit a couple of smaller tartlet molds. I tried to be thrifty and not waste pastry by putting lids on the tartlets. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!! Pecan pies are clearly open topped for a good reason.. they rise so much during baking (which sinks back down when cooling) that if you put a lid on them they just bubble over. And make a mess everywhere. Next time I will just use the extra pastry to make some jam tarts for the kids instead!

Meanwhile, the pecan pie was absolutely smashing topped with a scoop of caramel toffee crunch icecream. And perfectly timed as a dessert for an impromptu BBQ dinner with friends.