Pecan-Chewy Pie

Deep Run Roots

My family likes a pecan pie; it's a holiday staple in our house. But honestly? I think my kids like this one even more than the traditional pecan pie. Make it and let me know what you think!

I found this recipe here: https://parade.com/841972/alisonashton/vivian-howards-pecan-chewy-pie/

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:06]: with heather
[00:07]: today we're going to continue working
[00:08]: out of the deep run roots cookbook
[00:10]: vivian howard's cookbook
[00:12]: and uh it's thanksgiving this week in
[00:15]: the united states and so
[00:17]: we're going to make her pecan chewy pie
[00:20]: pecan pie is something that we have in
[00:22]: in my house
[00:23]: whenever wherever we go for christmas or
[00:26]: thanksgiving we always have a
[00:28]: um a pecan chewy pie
[00:31]: no not a pink chili pot we have a pecan
[00:33]: pie traditional pecan pie
[00:36]: usually we use his grandmother's recipe
[00:38]: but we're going to try this this year
[00:41]: it's just us the whole thing we're not
[00:43]: supposed to travel we're
[00:44]: just going to have the family here so
[00:47]: it's a time when we can
[00:49]: experiment a little bit plus it sounds
[00:51]: really good so
[00:53]: i have um my oven preheated
[00:56]: to 350 degrees and this is going to make
[00:59]: two supposed to be eight inch pies
[01:03]: my pie tins i think one's a ten and
[01:04]: one's a nine i'm sure it will be
[01:07]: fine might be a little bit thinner of a
[01:08]: crust but whatever
[01:11]: um so you can also make it in a 9x13
[01:16]: uh like casserole dish and that'll be
[01:18]: fine i'm probably going to freeze one
[01:19]: because there's no way
[01:21]: we can eat two whole pies
[01:24]: with everything else we're going to be
[01:25]: eating on thanksgiving or this whole
[01:27]: week
[01:28]: so let's get started we're going to make
[01:31]: the crust and the streusel um
[01:36]: so i'm going to start with some sugar
[01:39]: the little brown bits if you can tell
[01:42]: those are just
[01:43]: because i use the same um
[01:46]: measuring cup as i used for my pecans no
[01:49]: problem
[01:50]: those are going in the same same thing
[01:52]: so no problem uh
[01:53]: i have just plain all-purpose
[01:57]: flour and
[01:60]: now i have quite a lot of
[02:03]: very finely chopped pecan she says they
[02:06]: could
[02:07]: should resemble coarse skrits so you
[02:09]: could probably pulse these in a food
[02:10]: processor we have a nut grinder
[02:13]: that we use that makes pretty small
[02:15]: pieces as you can see
[02:18]: so we're going to start by stirring this
[02:21]: together and getting it all mixed up
[02:24]: and now the other ingredient i still
[02:26]: have in the refrigerator because it is
[02:27]: supposed to be cold
[02:29]: so i have some butter um i used unsalted
[02:31]: butter she does not specifically say but
[02:34]: usually i use unsalted butter in
[02:35]: baked baking so i have some unsalted
[02:38]: butter that i have cut into
[02:40]: smaller pieces because we are going to
[02:41]: be
[02:43]: basically um kind of like making a
[02:45]: pastry crust with this but we're going
[02:46]: to be cutting this in using
[02:49]: either a fork or cold hands because
[02:52]: you're going to try not to
[02:54]: melt this butter or
[02:58]: a pastry cutter which is what this is
[03:01]: um you can also use this to chop nuts
[03:05]: but it makes a lot of noise on the bowl
[03:08]: and
[03:08]: whatever so you're supposed to be um
[03:14]: cutting the butter in until it all
[03:15]: remember resembles
[03:17]: pebbly sand so we'll be doing this for
[03:21]: just a little bit
[03:22]: so i think this is pretty good my
[03:25]: husband has corrected me and he calls
[03:27]: this a
[03:27]: collared chopper but it can also be used
[03:30]: as a pastry
[03:31]: cutter it i think it works better than
[03:33]: the one that i have that's sort of
[03:35]: um just steel bands
[03:39]: bent steel bands looks kind of like a u
[03:41]: on a handle like this
[03:42]: this works a whole lot better i used to
[03:46]: use
[03:46]: like two butter knives so if you don't
[03:48]: have any of that you can use
[03:50]: that as well now the only thing that i
[03:54]: have to add to this
[03:56]: this is some egg and a little bit of
[03:58]: water
[03:59]: and whisk together it doesn't say to
[04:01]: whisk these together but then you
[04:02]: add them at the same time so it doesn't
[04:04]: matter and it's easier to whisk the egg
[04:06]: when they're stuffing it so
[04:07]: i'm just going to pour this in
[04:11]: and stir it until the mixture is
[04:14]: damp i do wonder considering
[04:17]: i always seem to need more water whether
[04:20]: it with my flower
[04:21]: my flower just i don't know if it's
[04:23]: extra dry or what
[04:25]: but it's hard to
[04:28]: i always feel like i need more water
[04:30]: than i should in a recipe
[04:33]: but i'm going to try not to add any
[04:35]: water we'll see
[04:37]: some of it stamps there's not a whole
[04:39]: lot of dry
[04:40]: and the butter will melt to help help uh
[04:43]: hold it all together
[04:45]: so
[04:53]: i'm gonna use my hands and see if i
[04:55]: think it'll hold together
[04:59]: it's a little it's a little dry i think
[05:02]: i'm gonna add
[05:03]: a little more water should be fine okay
[05:06]: so i added
[05:07]: like double the amount of water that she
[05:09]: called for but it was
[05:10]: still not a lot i'm going to get my
[05:14]: pie dishes i'm going to go ahead and
[05:15]: just bring one over and show you
[05:17]: how to do it with one um but it does
[05:20]: make two
[05:22]: so this goes both on the bottom and on
[05:24]: the top of this pie
[05:26]: um but we are going to put approximately
[05:30]: one quarter of this into here
[05:33]: and then um
[05:37]: try to pat it down
[05:49]: there we go so now i'm going to try to
[05:52]: pat it
[05:52]: into a crust like shape
[05:56]: in the pan just kind of like when you
[05:58]: make a um
[05:59]: a graham cracker crust except this is a
[06:02]: nut crust
[06:03]: and it goes supposed to go up the sides
[06:06]: probably not very far
[06:07]: her picture um has it
[06:11]: relatively thin and this is even a
[06:13]: thinner
[06:14]: i mean a slightly larger um
[06:18]: pie dish and my pie dish by the way has
[06:20]: been very liberally buttered
[06:22]: so
[06:30]: i'm not sure if it was
[06:34]: quite all of it got damp enough some of
[06:36]: it is
[06:41]: sticking together better than others but
[06:44]: we're gonna go with this
[06:46]: all right
[06:52]: she says this is a much more casual um
[06:55]: easy sort of
[06:57]: dessert than a pecan pie so that's what
[06:59]: her mother
[07:01]: how her mother used it when she wanted a
[07:03]: quicker
[07:04]: um pie probably because you don't have
[07:06]: to make and roll out a traditional
[07:08]: crust i'm going to use a little bit more
[07:12]: and fill in some of my holes and
[07:20]: all right we're going to call that good
[07:22]: i'm going to
[07:24]: bake this
[07:29]: in my oven that's preheated i'm gonna
[07:31]: bake this in my oven that's preheated
[07:32]: for
[07:33]: 15 minutes and it should not
[07:37]: get too brown maybe a little color
[07:39]: around the edges
[07:41]: so first i'm going to pat just do the
[07:44]: same thing in my other pie pan and then
[07:46]: we're gonna put them both
[07:47]: in the oven and we'll be back when those
[07:49]: are done
[07:50]: so we're gonna melt some white chocolate
[07:54]: with butter in a double boiler so i just
[07:58]: have
[07:58]: my saucier here and a bowl that will fit
[08:01]: in it
[08:01]: and enough water so that it won't touch
[08:04]: the bottom here
[08:06]: while it's boiling you can use a glass
[08:09]: bowl
[08:10]: or a metal bowl as long as it's heat
[08:13]: proof
[08:14]: uh i'm bringing it up to a boil real
[08:16]: quick here but i'm going to turn it down
[08:17]: as soon as it comes up to a boil
[08:20]: excuse the barking noise if you hear it
[08:23]: outside
[08:25]: um so as soon as it comes to a boil i'm
[08:28]: just going to turn it down
[08:31]: so that it doesn't like super boil
[08:38]: i leave it medium for right now my
[08:41]: butter was frozen so this is going to
[08:44]: take a little while
[08:45]: um but i have some white chocolate chips
[08:48]: here
[08:48]: i have a couple different kinds of white
[08:51]: chocolate chips
[08:52]: uh i just i had some in the freezer but
[08:54]: it wasn't quite enough for the recipe
[08:57]: and we're going to just stir this
[09:00]: and melt these together this is this is
[09:03]: sort of a standard
[09:05]: way to melt chocolate
[09:08]: um and she says that this may
[09:12]: um let me get my
[09:18]: i'm gonna get my hot pad so i can hold
[09:21]: it so it doesn't move too
[09:22]: much she says this may
[09:26]: um seize up and sort of um
[09:29]: look clumpy and gross but that that is
[09:33]: fine in this application normally that's
[09:35]: pretty bad for
[09:36]: regular chocolate um but
[09:40]: you can see it's already starting to to
[09:42]: melt here melt together
[09:45]: we just want to get it nice and smooth
[09:47]: hopefully
[09:48]: but we want it all to be melted so
[09:52]: i'm just gonna keep doing this
[09:55]: okay so this is pretty much melted and
[09:59]: uh yeah somewhere in the last
[10:03]: few seconds it did seem to get all
[10:06]: gross and um
[10:09]: separated so i'm going to take this off
[10:12]: i've turned off the heat i'm going to
[10:13]: take this off
[10:14]: we're going to let this maybe cool a
[10:16]: little bit and see
[10:18]: what happens well we set up to
[10:22]: make the filling like it was fine
[10:24]: although grainy and then all of a sudden
[10:26]: it seized up
[10:27]: so i'm glad as you can see it was fine
[10:31]: and now it's separated like all the
[10:34]: butter just separated from the chocolate
[10:37]: she says it's fine so um
[10:42]: we're going to continue making the
[10:43]: filling
[10:45]: and hopefully this will turn out okay
[10:47]: we're gonna trust
[10:49]: vivian on this one
[10:52]: we'll meet you back to make the filling
[10:56]: i took my uh my crusts out of the oven
[10:59]: after my timer they look pretty much the
[11:02]: same but they smell nice and toasty so
[11:04]: that's good
[11:06]: and now we're gonna continue making the
[11:07]: filling so i have
[11:09]: some egg yolks at room temperature
[11:13]: and i've shown you guys how i um
[11:16]: separate eggs before so we're not going
[11:18]: to bother with that
[11:19]: and we're going to whisk these and we're
[11:22]: going to add
[11:23]: some dark brown sugar and whisk this
[11:26]: together
[11:27]: just until it's it's thoroughly combined
[11:33]: that looks great to me and now we're
[11:36]: going to put our white chocolate mixture
[11:38]: in here and whisk it my white chocolate
[11:41]: mixture
[11:42]: as you remember is rather separated
[11:46]: so i'm gonna keep my hand my fingers
[11:48]: crossed that this works
[11:50]: so i'm gonna dump all of this in here it
[11:53]: is still very separated but i've tried
[11:54]: to keep it a little bit warm
[11:56]: off the heat
[12:00]: so now is the moment of truth
[12:11]: okay that's good i'm gonna clean up a
[12:12]: little bit
[12:14]: give myself some room to work and now
[12:17]: we're going to
[12:18]: whisk in some heavy cream there's a lot
[12:21]: of butter
[12:22]: and a lot of heavy cream heavy cream is
[12:24]: also supposed to be at room temperature
[12:25]: i've just
[12:26]: um when i
[12:30]: that's great when i uh took the egg
[12:34]: yolks out i went ahead and measured it
[12:35]: and just left it
[12:37]: on the countertop so
[12:41]: it's probably been about i don't know an
[12:43]: hour
[12:50]: so there we go heavy cream butter
[12:54]: sugar egg yolks and white chocolate
[13:00]: and now we're going to mix
[13:04]: um some toasted and
[13:07]: roughly chopped pecans i toasted them
[13:09]: first and then sort of roughly chopped
[13:10]: them with a knife
[13:12]: these are accurately measured unlike my
[13:14]: other ones where
[13:15]: i let my um crew measure them and we
[13:18]: probably had a little bit more than the
[13:19]: recipe called for so
[13:21]: just for your reference
[13:24]: and we're going to stir that together
[13:27]: with some more flour
[13:30]: and some salt this is the only salt in
[13:32]: the recipe
[13:33]: considering i used unsalted butter i'm
[13:35]: just gonna
[13:37]: use my hands because i do that
[13:40]: get these all mixed together
[13:44]: and now i need
[13:47]: a different utensil to fold that in here
[13:53]: so let me get a spatula so i got just
[13:56]: a spatula i used when i was um melting
[13:58]: the white chocolate because the same
[13:60]: ingredients everything
[14:01]: and we're going to fold these in
[14:04]: until everything is in cork just until
[14:06]: everything is incorporated so we don't
[14:08]: want to do
[14:09]: super don't stir this for a really long
[14:15]: time
[14:20]: i think that's just incorporated and now
[14:24]: um we just divide this into our two
[14:27]: crusts so
[14:28]: let me get that set up i'm supposed to
[14:30]: let this cool before we put the filling
[14:32]: in
[14:34]: it's not completely cool
[14:37]: but i can touch it so it's not that hot
[14:39]: so
[14:40]: now we're going to um divide our filling
[14:43]: between these two so
[14:52]: make these as since my
[14:55]: pans are slightly different they're not
[14:57]: going to be exactly equal but i'm sure
[14:59]: it will be
[15:00]: fine i say that a lot it'll be fine and
[15:04]: really in cooking
[15:05]: mostly it'll be fine as long as you're
[15:07]: not doing anything
[15:09]: too awful the results will generally be
[15:11]: edible
[15:17]: just don't add tarragon when you mean to
[15:19]: add time
[15:24]: okay and now
[15:27]: um we're going to sprinkle
[15:31]: the remaining streusel on top
[15:32]: approximately half of what's remaining
[15:35]: on each of them
[15:43]: so i've put everything in here as it
[15:46]: should be
[15:47]: and i have reduced the temperature on my
[15:49]: oven to 325 degrees
[15:53]: and we're going to um let's see
[15:57]: bake them for about 40 minutes until
[15:59]: they are golden brown and
[16:01]: set in the middle so we'll show you what
[16:04]: they look like when we take them out of
[16:06]: the oven
[16:14]: on this episode of cooking the books
[16:16]: with heather you watch me make the pecan
[16:18]: chewy
[16:18]: pie from deep run roots and we once
[16:22]: again
[16:22]: have my taste testers
[16:26]: uh to taste it my husband and i have
[16:28]: already tasted it so we can let you know
[16:30]: what we think
[16:31]: but we're gonna see if they like it on
[16:33]: camera for you
[16:34]: we're not taste testers if you guys have
[16:37]: already
[16:38]: eaten it you got to taste
[16:41]: she's not a teenager yet so
[16:45]: amber's gonna take the first bite my my
[16:47]: daughter over here my teenager
[16:50]: slash teenager
[16:53]: it's clean
[17:03]: hmm all right so what do you think i see
[17:06]: no difference between
[17:07]: this one and yours hmm no difference
[17:10]: between this one and mine well
[17:12]: this has less of a filling
[17:15]: um the filling is uh
[17:18]: there's a lot of nuts and it's not so
[17:21]: the a regular pecan pie has sort of um
[17:24]: a gooier filling with less nuts this is
[17:28]: this is kind of like a almost like a bar
[17:31]: cookie
[17:32]: uh so it's very very
[17:37]: it's very very uh heavy on pecans
[17:42]: um but it's really good it's it's tasty
[17:46]: the kids obviously really like it um
[17:49]: oh i forgot to mention it you should
[17:52]: so subscribe you should subscribe if
[17:56]: you're enjoying
[17:57]: watching me cook and watching them taste
[18:01]: um so yeah apparently they really like
[18:03]: it uh it's
[18:04]: it does seem much more like a more
[18:06]: casual less
[18:08]: pie like dessert she serves it with
[18:12]: chocolate ice cream which i believe they
[18:15]: would like to try
[18:16]: next but we decided to start with just
[18:20]: um the the pie as it is
[18:24]: anyway it was not that hard
[18:27]: uh double boiling
[18:31]: maybe you know some people have a
[18:33]: problem with that it's a little bit
[18:34]: difficult but you don't need special
[18:35]: equipment for that
[18:37]: um chopping up the nuts you can chop
[18:39]: them up with your knife that would be
[18:41]: kind of annoying
[18:42]: i do recommend a nut chopper or a food
[18:44]: processor for the
[18:46]: fine nuts um but all in all it was not
[18:50]: that difficult i've already
[18:51]: wrapped up the other one and stuck it in
[18:54]: the freezer
[18:55]: she says by the way this will keep for
[18:57]: three days
[18:58]: covered at room temperature um i'm
[19:01]: probably gonna put mine in the
[19:02]: refrigerator where it will last
[19:04]: longer because thanksgiving isn't still
[19:07]: you know more than three days away
[19:08]: not too much more um and it will take
[19:11]: monday more
[19:12]: and it will take us a while to eat it
[19:15]: but if you enjoyed watching me cook
[19:19]: please give me a thumbs up and subscribe
[19:22]: and come back and watch me make
[19:24]: something else