Skip to main content

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


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Grandma's Harvey Wallbanger Cake Makeover

My grandmother made Harvey Wallbanger cake at every family function for as long as I can remember. Birthdays, holiday parties, anytime we'd all get together this cake would be at the center of the table, but after grandma passed away and I became more conscientious of the ingredients that we were eating I stopped making the cake. It her version was made with yellow cake mix vanilla pudding mix which both contained artificial colors and flavors and oftentimes palm oil which I'm allergic to. For a few years I've been trying to find a recipe that matched what I remembered from Grandma's Harvey Wallbanger cake but was unable to find it from scratch recipe that really seemed to hit the mark. Finally I've come up with a recipe that matches the taste and texture of my grandma's Harvey Wallbanger recipe but without any of the artificial ingredients that they put in cake mixes and putting mixes now. I hope you enjoy it! Ingredients:  1 3/4 C Sugar 3/4 tsp Sal...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sourdough Discard Chocolate Cake

I've made sourdough bread for years but recently started branching out and trying different things with my discard. I had made apple cheddar muffins with sourdough discard probably about 15 years ago, sourdough waffles like the ones I had tried in Las Vegas, but never really added it to anything else outside of bread products.  I tried Chocolate Chip Cookies a while back with good results so it seemed natural to try a chocolate cake recipe. I tend to make my baked goods less sweet so I adapted a recipe I found to suit our tastes and topped it with a lightly sweetened peanut butter drizzle. This cake was moist and perfectly sweet. Ingredients: 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 3/4 cup cocoa powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 3/4 cup oil 1/2 cup sourdough discard 1/2 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 cup milk of choice 1/2 cup hot, fresh and strong brewed coffee Preheat oven to 350° and grease a bundt pan, set aside. In a large ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pumpkin Waffles

Does anyone else find that a can of pumpkin is not two cups anymore? You don't have enough pumpkin to make two batches of any of your recipes. And you're always left with 3/4 of a cup of pumpkin, either having to open another can to get a full cup or not using enough pumpkin in your recipe. I found the perfect way to use up that extra 3/4 of a cup of pumpkin, pumpkin waffles.  Besides being tasty, I'm looking at you pumpkin haters, pumpkin is a great source of vitamin A to up the health content of your waffles just a little bit, while still being delicious. You can serve the waffles with cinnamon brown sugar bacon, spiced cider, or a pumpkin spiced latte to increase your fall vibes.  Ingredients: 2 Eggs, beaten 1 1/4 C Milk 3/4 C Pumpkin  2 TBS Molasses  2 C Flour 2 tsp Pumpkin Spice 4 tsp Baking Powder  1/2 tsp Salt 1/2 C Butter, melted  Heat the waffle iron. Place the beaten eggs in a large bowl. Add the milk, pumpkin, and molasses and beat th...
Post a Comment
Read more