MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06

Title: Eric's Chocolate Pecan Pie
Categories: Pastry, Pies, Nuts, Chocolate
Yield: 6 Servings

4 tb Butter
1/2 c Dark brown sugar
1 lg Egg
1/2 c 100% pure maple syrup
6 oz Pecans broken up by hand
6 oz Semi-sweet chocolate.
1 (10") frozen pie crust

Eric's recipe made two to three pies, so the first thing
I needed to do was effectively halve the recipe.

Eric uses Ghirardelli's Double Chocolate chips in his
recipe and warns against the use of milk chocolate.
(Double Chocolate is Ghirardelli's branding for
bittersweet chocolate for baking.) I was picking up the
necessary ingredients at my local supermarket (Save
Mart) on the way home from work and was surprised to
find that they do not carry bittersweet chocolate chips
at all. I picked up a bag of Guittard's Semi-Sweet
Baking Chips and thus deviated from Eric's recipe a
little (or maybe a lot).

First, I creamed the butter and brown sugar together.

Then I added an egg and mixed until it was fully
integrated.

I scraped the bowl down once and added maple syrup. A
few more seconds and my Kitchenaid stand mixer had the
mixture smooth and consistent.

After removing the bowl from the mixer, I poured in the
halved pecans and stirred by hand with a spatula. Then I
added the chocolate chips and stirred and folded until
the pecans and chips were evenly dispersed, about ten
strokes.

The mixture is then poured into the pie crust and
leveled. Normally, I would blind bake the crust to
ensure that it doesn't get soggy. (Blind baking is where
you bake the crust without filling to harden the crust.
This gives the crust more structural support to handle a
wet filling so it doesn't fall apart or soak up too much
liquid before the filling is baked.) Eric's recipe
didn't mention this and called for a fairly high heat of
375ºF/190ºC so I did not blind bake the crust.
375ºF/190ºC375?F until the filling set. I checked the
filling by holding the pie on both sides and twisting
gently to spin the pie pan. A set filling should not
move on the outside and jiggle on the inside (like
Jell-O). The pie was done after 45 minutes (just like
Eric said).

TASTE RESULTS: The pie is not your traditional pecan
pie. This pie is quite chocolatey and less sweet than
pecan pies that I've had from bakeries (which I felt was
overwhelmingly sweet). I brought the pie into work and
it was gone before I knew it with people asking for
seconds (but there was none to give out). So, maybe
Eric's original recipe of two or three pies would have
been better.

The general concensus was that the pie was very good and
a welcome departure from the traditional pecan pie. The
chocolate lover's especially liked the chocolate chips
and some commented on the excellent flavor that the
maple syrup introduced. I recommend trying this recipe!

RECIPE FROM: http://www.cookingforengineers.com

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