Day Three Hundred and Forty Three : MLK Pecan Pie Results

It is the worst mixture of wetness, coldness, mucky-ness, and all around just unfortunate winter weather. The perfect sort of evening to go home and bake a savory pecan pie to lift your spirits and look forward to warmer weather, right?

So who won the chance to baked into the mix today?

Image courtesy of www.bfeedme.com

I actually somewhat tricked you all because it is in fact a mixture of two of our fair contestants who won out this week but before I get to the recipe, I wanted to explain why I suggested our last and final contestant -- Grafton's 2 year aged cheddar. Baking with cheddar can be a fabulous experience and can infuse that fabulous creamy cheesy flavor into your dish but I think you need to add another element into the mix that has a higher water content because the cheddar is such a firm and dry cheese. So should you feel the desire to make a pear, cheddar, pecan pie that could be a fabulous option! Or even an apple one!

But for our purposes here, I tried to stick to the classic recipe without adding a large number of additional elements, of course the cheeses but otherwise, I tried to keep it simple. Why did I choose a mixture of the Honey Cana de Cabra and the Gorgonzola Dolce? Because the faint piquant blueness will be the perfect counterpart to the crunchy sweetness of the nuts and the honey infused into the Cana de Cabra will imbue your pie with a sweetness without the necessity to add excess amounts of sugar. The cheeses together will add this nice creamy, lactic, round mouth feel which will play off the crunch of the pie topping and add more substance to the dish as a whole. I think you will find that this pie will be sweet, savory, crunchy, and all around fabulous.

So let's get to making it already!

3 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter (I like Pulgra or other European style butters)
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup (I think it adds a nice toasty-ness to the pie that isn't as present when you use lighter corn syrup.)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup of grated or cut down Gorgonzola Dolce
2/3 cup of cut down Honey Cana de Cabra
2 cups of pecans
1 9 inch frozen crust (you can also make your own but if you are feeling lazy, buying pie crust is a decent option too...)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Line bottom of pie dish with PAM Baking spray and lay pie crust in with a light coating of butter.

3. Melt butter in skillet on top of stove.

4. Combine all of the other ingredients with a whisk or stand mixer. Add in pecans at last minute.

5. Pour filling into pie dish and top with a small dusting of brown sugar and a few sea salt crystals.

6. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes.

7. Cool and Enjoy!