The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Texas · Dessert

Texas Pecan Pie

  • Intermediate
  • 80 min
  • roughly 2 of 4 for cost
  • Vegetarian

rich · sweet-edged · floral Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a sweet edge rounding the corners, leaving a faint perfume.

Ingredients

  • 1 unbaked 23cm pie shell
  • 250g Texas pecans
  • 3 eggs
  • 200g brown sugar
  • 180ml dark corn syrup or cane syrup
  • 55g butter, melted
  • 2 tbsp bourbon
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/2 tsp salt

The skills inside

The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake

Allergen screen

Found: dairy · egg · nuts · alcohol

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Scatter the pecans in the shell.
  2. Whisk the eggs, brown sugar, syrup, melted butter, bourbon, vanilla, and salt until smooth.
  3. Pour over the pecans; they rise to form the top.
  4. Bake at 175C for 50-60 min until set with a slight jiggle. 60 min
  5. Cool completely before slicing.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes

  • Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
  • The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
  • The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
  • The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
  • Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.

Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.

At the Table

The Pour
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The sweetness rule is absolute: the pour must be sweeter than the plate, and acid keeps it from cloying.

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Texas Pecan Pie Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Texas Pecan Pie A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.