Midwest Pecan Pie - BEST EVER RECIPE!

Recipes at the Top * Chit-Chat at the bottom!  

Midwest Pecan Pie

 

Unbaked pie crust

¼ cup melted butter (real butter not margarine)

1 cup sugar

1 cup clear Karo

4 eggs (yes, use all four)

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ T flour

2 cups shelled pecans

 

Instructions: 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees/bake.

Sprinkle unbaked crust dough with a little flour and then place the rolled dough in a pie plate. Trim the edges and create whatever edging you prefer. I pinch mine using my right thumb/index finger to pinch dough around my left index finger.  It isn’t gorgeous, but works pretty good! (Do not prick the bottom of the crust.)  Set aside until the filling is ready to be poured into the unbaked crust.

In a medium mixing bowl, melt the butter.  (I melt in the microwave.)  Add sugar and Karo syrup and mix until well combined.  (Doing in this order cools the butter down before adding the eggs.)  Add eggs and other ingredients (except the nuts) and stir until well mixed/smooth.  Last, add the pecans and stir again to fully combine.

Pour into crust.

Place pie on a regular cookie sheet/sheet pan to catch any drips.  Place all in oven.

Bake 1 hour or until a knife inserted comes out clean.  (I baked mine an extra five minutes.) 

 

The chit-chat:

 

Unbelievably, it had been a few years since I had eaten a really delicious pecan pie and this past Thanksgiving, I set out to find a good recipe.  This is that recipe!  So – I’m saving it here never to be lost again!

 

My husband’s “Aunt C” always made the pecan pies for our Thanksgiving dinners and I LOVED THEM!  Sweet and buttery with a slight hint of vanilla.  They were the Thanksgiving dish that I dreamed about all year (while the rest of the family dreamed of Aunt C’s beef & noodles ladled over my mother-in-law’s fluffy mashed potatoes). 

In 2019, Aunt C was a little under the weather (so Sam’s Club prepared the pies that year).  Eek.  Not the same compared to Aunt C’s dreamy pecan pies.   Sadly, we lost Aunt C in 2020.  We miss her terribly, even more than we miss her cooking.

In 2020, we chose to celebrate Thanksgiving with our own small immediate families rather than doing the large family dinners of years’ past (one word=covid). I made my own pies for Thanksgiving 2020.

My 2020 pecan pie was not good (pretty much like the whole, dang year, I guess).  I didn’t like that pie one bit.  I used the recipe on the Karo syrup bottle and it tasted only like sugar and nuts to me.  It wasn’t the juicy, buttery/vanilla combo that I was used to eating as cranked out by Aunt C.  Also, I should mention (in case anyone forgets) that holiday dishes are to be “taken with a grain of salt” since anything that can go wrong on holidays, pretty much does.  Don’t we all have stories of holiday dish fails? LOL.  So, it wasn’t just my pecan pie that was a fail in 2020.  It was also the year Jr./the huge red dog jumped in the back seat of my Honda Civic and promptly stepped right in the one and only pumpkin pie!)  2020 was not the year for Thanksgiving desserts apparently, lol. 

 

I decided this year, 2021, to try to find Aunt C’s recipe. 

 

I wasn’t able to find Aunt C’s recipe, but her sister (Doug’s Mom) DID have a pecan pie recipe that called for four eggs and half a stick of butter.  I was SURE THIS was closer to Aunt C’s dreamy pecan pie.

 

Ta-da!  It WAS the pie of my dreams and so I’m sharing it here.  Oh how I wish, that Aunt C had given us lessons on how to make her noodles, her stuffing and many of the other dishes we love that can only be made by Aunt C.  Good food is pretty special to folks.  It takes us “home” even when we can’t get there, whether that’s down south in Florida, to Aunt C’s kitchen, or to our last home (that burned, along with my recipes) in Hickory Grove.   

Seriously, nothing takes you back like your favorite dish as made by one of your favorite peeps.

 

Hope your family likes our favorite recipe for pecan pie.  It is a keeper for sure and I know you’re going to love it.

P.S.  This pie EVEN won over a non-pecan pie eater.  Mr. Kenney had never in his life tasted pecan pie until the other night (after bowling).  He tasted a nibble first, then more, then a whole piece.  He's been chipping away at it ever since.  Nothing like trying pecan pie for the first time at at 57.  LOL.  Crazy man.

 

Enjoy!

Gina