Pecan Praline Pumpkin Pie

(Thanks to hubby for the above pic)

On Wedesday night, my good friend Jamie and I decided that while our men were playing X-box we would make pies to take to our many thanksgiving celebrations. This is the first year we will be attending as "wives" so we thought this would be a good contribution. This idea was based on the theory that if we did it together and in mass, it would be easier. It was definately more fun, but I don't know about easier.

Let's start this little tale by pointing out that neither one of us had ever made a pie before. (Well, Jamie had apparently heated one up, which instantly made her the expert) In my lovely cold-induced couch surfing of the week before I had seen Martha Stewart make a Pecan Praline Pumpkin Pie. She oooed and ahhhed about the fancy crust and the yumminess. I don't even like pumpkin pie, but it looked good. So, I consulted with my Mom regarding the recipe (when I didn't know what 'cold leaf lard' was for the crust ingredients) and she helped ammend it a bit. Number one, my mom is a fantastic cook and baker. And yet, she says the only person she has ever known who can make a pie crust that isn't tough is her mother, who is no longer with us, and didn't pass this down, despite my mom's many efforts. The hidden message here was: "Molly, you don't stand a chance at nailing a pie crust." So, we went with the premade pie-crust that you just unroll and place in the tin, as per Mom's excellent advice.

So, steps 1-10 pretty much involved some Mike's hard lime (We start every recipe with some kind of drink, and we will swear up and down that it says to do so in them)and cutting out tiny teardropped shaped pieces of the pre-made dough to make our curly crust. We used a home-made cutter that I fashioned out of some black wrap. Next year we will buy the real cookie cutter needed, but it worked.

So, the crust itself had to be placed in the oven for 10 minutes and then taken out and let to cool, while the little curly cue things chilled out in the fridge.
Then we had to put the curly cues on the crust with egg wash. Quite an endeavour. Here is Jamie trying to explain the difference between placing them parallel with the crust, and perpindicular as the recipe directed.
I swear to you, she was doing this before I grabbed the camera. (Side note, it was really hard to remember to take pictures of the process and to focus on the cooking)
So we made the filling of the pie. Now, it should be noted that we skipped right over Martha's directions to steam an actual pumpkin (Mom says there are special baking kinds) and used the premade puree in a can. Such smarts we thought! A twenty minute debate insued however when the recipe called for a pound of puree per pie, but the can said that it's one pound of contents were enough for two pies. We even consulted the Men on this decision. Ultimately, as Jamie explained, Libby's (the company that makes the puree) has been making pies for 70 years, and Martha has been making them "fabulously" for only five. So, we went with the can's recommendation. As we stirred, Jamie gave a small lesson on her use of an adverb in that argument. It should be noted that Jamie is a sixth grade language arts teacher. Apparently, adverbs were the hot topic this week.

Believe it or not, we actually got the pies filled and in the oven. I took a picture to prove they were normal before this crucial step where things usually go wrong for me.

About halfway thru cooking, some of our curlycue crust started to fall off, so we had to repair it (I'll just leave that up to your imagination). We determined this happened because we didn't chill the completed crusts for an hour like Martha recommended. (We are impatient cooks)
While the pie cooked, we made the pecan praline for the top. This resulted in one failed attempt where our sugar syrup crystallized (Jamie theorized it was because we used a pan larger than Martha recommended), but our second attempt with a smaller pan was a success.

Jamie is a BIG rule follower. So the timer was very important:

In the end, after about 50 minutes of baking, we had success!


I didn't take any pictures of the pies the next morning when we put on the praline topping, but lets just suffice it to say that they looked JUST LIKE MARTHAS.
Happy Thanksgiving!