Mini Pecan Pie

One of my favorite things to do is cook or bake.  Lately I've been doing a lot more than usual - and I've been in a from-scratch craze because a) it saves money and b) I'm too lazy to drive to the store.  So far the home-made biscuits were pretty good, and the pasta was too hard to roll (that's right, I was too lazy to go down the street to get dried pasta so I tried to make my own).

The boyfriend loves pecan pie, so the other day I made mini-pecan pies.

Dough:

I followed the traditional easy crust recipe, 1.5 cups of sifted flour, dash of salt, 1 stick of COLD butter, and 4 tablespoons of cold water.  Just throw the sifted flour and butter and salt in a food processor (NINJA to the rescue again!) and pulse until you get a course consistency, then add the water and pulse until it combines into a nice dough.  From there just dump it out on a floured surface and roll away.

This makes enough for an 8-9" pie or 6 mini pies.

I used mini-ramekins (I love entertaining serving-ware and have a mini-collection).  I cut the dough a little larger than the ramekin and then rolled it a little more, then I fit the dough into the ramekin and used my thumbs to smoosh the overlapping edges and work the dough up the sides - like a pinch-pot in elementary school. Rip off any excess over the top, or roll into a fluted edge - your choice.

Filling:

Usually,  I follow the Pillsbury recipe for pecan pie.  Again, laziness being the theme, I winged it.

I used the rest of the pecans I had leftover from my cheeseball the previous week, a few glugs of light corn syrup until everything was coated, a beaten egg, and a cap of vanilla extract.  Then I mixed and filled the cups.  In hindsight, I didn't use enough corn syrup, but they were still tasty.

Bake at 375 deg for 30 minutes or so...until the filling looks like a toasted foam, but before the crust burns - or the pecans, as they can burn too.

I treated myself to one last night, it was really good with whipped cream on top of it.  Boyfriend has been smiling since.  Today I think I will whip up a vat of my every-cheese-in-the-fridge mac & cheese.  So good!  But first, I got to get my crafting on.