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Agave Sweetened Butter Pecan Pie

This recipe has been a Thanksgiving tradition in our family for around a decade. It comes out perfect every time, and even caused quite the commotion last Thanksgiving when my father in law told his mother that my Chocolate Bourbon version was better than hers. (Gasp!) It's even a teeny bit healthy too. 

I love making pretty designs on the top.

We have cleaned up the ingredients of this Butter Pecan Pie by removing the corn syrup and replacing it with agave nectar. Before you go all crazy on me by telling me that Agave Nectar is just as bad as corn syrup let me get in two points.

1. Yes Agave Nectar is Fructose. That’s why it works in this and my peanut brittle, but depending on HOW it’s processed it can be lower glycemic
2. Agave Nectar is Non-GMO and doesn’t contain all the icky stuff used to process corn syrup.

Why do you need a fructose component in pecan pie?
If you ever made Rock Candy as a child you know that sugar molecules fight through liquid to bond to each other. When they push out liquid they stick to each other and crystallize. Fructose butts in between the sugar molecules to keep them apart, preventing crystallization. So here we use Agave Nectar as the fructose to keep the sugar from crystallizing.

Say bye-bye to runny pecan pie!
If you ever have had runny pecan pie, or burnt your crust trying to get your filling set up, here is the secret. Cook the filling first! By pre-cooking the filling, your pie crust and filling will finish together is glorious harmony.




Agave Sweetened Butter Pecan Pie

1 Pie Crust
1 ½ cups Pecans (halves and pieces) plus 1 ½ C pecan halves for top
1 cup Brown sugar
1 cup Agave nectar
1/2 cup unsalted Butter
1 tablespoon All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
3 Eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon Vanilla

To prepare the filling: Preheat the oven to 425°. Combine the pecans, rapadura sugar, agave nectar, butter, flour and salt in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Cool 15 minutes.

Whisk the eggs and vanilla into the filling. Pour the filling into the pie shell. Place reserved pecan halves on top.

Bake 10 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°. Bake until the custard has set and a knife inserted in the center comes out cleanly, about 45 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool for at least 45 minutes.

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie Variation 
Before going into the oven




Make as above but replace flour with 3 Tbs Cocoa powder and add 3 Tbs Bourbon in with egg and vanilla. Bake same as above. 

This was a huge hit at Thanksgiving. By using cocoa powder instead of chocolate chips like other recipes you have chocolate throughout the pie instead of glopy chocolate at the bottom of the pie and the cocoa powder cuts the sweetness of the pecan pie a bit!

* for 2014 I used Cognac instead of Bourbon and omitted the vanilla, I think it was even better!

*This recipe originally appeared on my Healthy Gourmet on the Go Blog in November of 2013


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