Extremely Delicious Pecan Pie

Another recipe from the fabulous Hummingbird Bakery for you all today!  This Pecan Pie is probably the tastiest dessert I've ever made myself, and it requires hardly any ingredients, it's like magic... 

For the pastry you will need:

• 260g plain flour
• 110g unsalted butter

For the filling you will need:

• 200g caster sugar
• 250ml dark corn syrup (this is another foodstuff that doesn't seem to exist in Dundee, so I used golden syrup)
• 3 eggs
• 60g unsalted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 100g shelled pecan nuts

1. First of all, make your pastry.  As I have a) no pie dish or baking beans and b) no time right now, I bought this top quality pastry case from the supermarket for 69p.  If you are more of a baking puritan than me,  follow Hummingbird's advice and make your own pastry by mixing together the flour and butter and adding tablespoons of water until it reaches a doughy consistency, then leaving to rest wrapped in clingfilm for an hour (see what I mean about not having the time?).  Next, roll out the dough, place it in the pie dish and cover with greaseproof paper and baking beans.  Bake in an oven preheated to 170 degrees for 10 minutes, then remove the paper and baking beans and bake for another 10 minutes.

2. If you haven't fallen into a coma reading the previous step, finely chop the pecans, reserving some nice looking ones to stick on top of the pie for decoration if you wish.  Hummingbird's pecan pie is also pictured below, to show what you're really aspiring to.

3. Put the sugar and syrup in a saucepan with a pinch of salt and bring to the boil.  My hand always looks really odd when it makes it into these in photos, I assure you it's normal in real life though!

4. When the syrup and sugar mixture looks like the picture below, remove from the heat and leave to cool.  I left mine for far too long as I was scared by Hummingbird's warning about the eggs scrambling if the mixture wasn't cool enough, and it all solidified, so I would suggest only leaving to cool for about 15 minutes.

5. In another bowl, whisk the eggs and pour in the warm syrup mixture, stirring quickly.  Add the butter and vanilla extract and stir until the butter all melts.  If you leave the mixture to cool for too long like I did and the butter stays in ominous lumps (hence the lack of photo for this step) use the microwave to melt the butter.

6. Put the chopped pecans in the pie dish and pour the mixture on top.  Bake in an oven preheated to 170 degrees for about 50 minutes.  Arrange the whole pecans on the top for decoration when the pie comes out of the oven as they will burn otherwise.

Here is the finished pie, I forgot to take a photo of it when it was whole as I was too hungry, sorry!  The ice cream is Vanilla Caramel Brownie from Lidl, I suggest giving Lidl ice creams a go as they are really cheap but taste amazing.  The pie was also super tasty, you should give it a try even if you're not the biggest fan of nuts as it doesn't have a strong nutty taste at all, even Tetley likes it and he's the most fussy person ever!