Thanksgiving Dinner: Pecan Pie Tart

Name: Thanksgiving Dinner: Pecan Pie Tart
Prep time: 1 h
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Yield: 8 serving(s)
Ingredients: FOR THE CRUST:; 2 c. All-purpose Flour; 1 tsp. Sugar; 1 tsp. Salt; 3/4 c. Cold Unsalted Butter Cut Into Pieces; 4 tbsp. Ice Water; 1 tbsp. Vanilla Bean Paste; FOR THE FILLING:; 4 tbsp. Unsalted Butter, melted; 2 Large Eggs; 1 c. Light Corn Syrup; 1 c. Loosely Packed Brown Sugar; 1 tbsp. Bourbon; 2 tsp. Vanilla Extract; 1 c. Coarsely Chopped Pecans; 1 c. Whole Pecans

By Jessica MerchantPublished: Nov 18, 2015

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How Sweet Eats/The Pioneer Woman

Caramel-y, chewy pecan filling is baked on top of a vanilla bean tart crust to take this traditional dessert to another level. Makes one 9-inch tart. From Jessica Merchant of How Sweet It Is.

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Yields:: 8 serving(s)
Prep Time:: 1 hr
Cook Time:: 50 mins
Total Time:: 1 hr 50 mins

Ingredients

FOR THE CRUST:
2 c. All-purpose Flour
1 tsp. Sugar
1 tsp. Salt
3/4 c. Cold Unsalted Butter Cut Into Pieces
4 tbsp. Ice Water
1 tbsp. Vanilla Bean Paste
FOR THE FILLING:
4 tbsp. Unsalted Butter, melted
2 Large Eggs
1 c. Light Corn Syrup
1 c. Loosely Packed Brown Sugar
1 tbsp. Bourbon
2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 c. Coarsely Chopped Pecans
1 c. Whole Pecans

Directions

For the crust:
Place flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of your food processor and pulse to blend. Add cold butter and blend until coarse crumbs remain; you want the butter in little pieces. Stream in ice water and vanilla bean paste, blending until dough starts to come together. Use your hands to remove the dough and form it into a ball. Press it down slightly into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for 30 minutes.

For the filling:
While dough is chilling, whisk together butter, eggs, corn syrup, sugar, bourbon and vanilla extract until smooth. Stir in chopped pecans.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it into a large circle, about 1/4-inch thick. Press the dough into the tart pan, removing excess edges. Pour pecan filling into the tart. Place whole pecans on top of filling. Place tart pan on the baking sheet. Bake for 45–55 minutes, or until filling is set.

Remove the tart from the oven and let cool completely. You can definitely make this a day ahead of time. Slice into wedges when you’re ready to serve!

Recipe for filling lightly adapted from Saveur.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! In fact, it’s tough trying to pick my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving? Christmas?

I like to combine the week before Thanksgiving through the New Year and consider it one giant holiday—it is, after all—and declare that my favorite. It is, it is!

Which brings us here. To dessert. A very important part of that long holiday.

I always have room for dessert. Always! (There are some sort of special taste buds for that, right? I hope so.) But as much as I love dessert, Thanksgiving is the one meal where I rarely have room for it. It usually depends on what time dinner is, which is tricky because we have dinner twice: first with my husband’s family, then with my family. I try my best to reel it in with meal number one, but all of those Thanksgiving flavors are just so wonderful that it’s a tough job to eat moderately.

My game plan is to have a taste or two of my favorite dessert on Thanksgiving. I usually like a bite of pumpkin something since it tastes nostalgic, but I also really love chocolate on Turkey Day. And if I can’t handle that, I’ll have a piece after lunch the next day. Sounds like a good compromise to me.

Pecan pie is one of those treats that is so rich, I can rarely finish an entire slice. It’s caramel-y and buttery and full of brown sugar and crunchy pecans. And it’s the one time I make an exception about having nuts in my dessert.

I’m still mastering the art of the perfect pie crust, so I decided to go with a tart instead. Plus those rippled edges are just too cute! I used my grandmother’s crust as a base and into it went a generous amount of vanilla bean paste, taking everything to another level. (She’s probably rolling her eyes up in heaven.)