so S and i watch a lot of food network. in fact, this time of year, if we’re not watching football, we’re watching either guy, alton, bobby (our three favorite guys) host, cook, or judge some sort of dish or dive. over the holidays there was a show called “the holiday baking championship,” hosted by bobby dean (one of paula’s sons) and judged by three food personalities (duff goldman, nancy fuller & loraine pascale). the show pinned eight amateur bakers against each other competing for the coveted $50,000 prize and title of holiday baking champion. each week they would endure a baking challenge (one episode they had to make a holiday breakfast, another challenge was creating the festive yule log) and while one contestant would receive top accolades, another would leave the competition.
during the pie episode, one of the bakers made her family’s famous bourbon chocolate pecan pie. say what? (cue ears perking up). both S and i were very intrigued. so when it came to deciding what dessert to fit in with our new year’s even thanksgiving feast, we immediately remembered the bourbon pecan pie and got to work finding a recipe. a quick google search led me to joy the baker, an acclaimed food blogger whose food photography is just as tantalizing as her recipes themselves. so following her lead, we recreated this sweet treat, swapping out her homemade crust for a pre-made gluten-free variety of our own. and by “our own” i mean we bought it at sprouts.
bourbon pecan pie with dark chocolate (adapted from joy the baker)
ingredients:
for crust:
we cheated and used pre-made gluten free crust (but follow the above recipe for instructions on how to make your own gluten-full crust)
for filling:
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons bourbon
1/3 cup melted unsalted butter
1 heaping cup chopped pecans
3 ounces coarsely chopped dark chocolate
directions:
to make the filling, in a medium bowl whisk together sugar, corn syrup, salt, eggs, vanilla extract, bourbon, and unsalted butter. whisk until well combined. the mixture will be thick and syrupy.
place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. sprinkle pecans and chocolate around the bottom of the pie shell. whisk the liquid filling and pour over the chocolate and nuts. place pie on a rimmed baking sheet and place in the oven. pie will bake for about 45 to 55 minutes. you’ll know it’s done when the pie no longer jiggles in waves, but is rather puffed and jiggles uniformly.
remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before refrigerating.
we served ours a la mode because duh.
