Steve and I recently moved into our new home. With our first baby’s arrival rapidly approaching, we needed a larger space than our 663 square feet. We didn’t have a ton of time to move as we were still in the thick of our busy wedding season. It was a whirlwind of scrambling to pack everything up, unloading into the new house and then returning our focus back on finishing our weddings for the year. We spent the next month living out of boxes, digging through messes every day and struggling to remember and find where we had put our shoes.
It’s only been in the last few days that we have had the time to finish unpacking boxes, paint a few rooms, hang photos on the walls and feel more settled here. I think what really made this house feel like our home was when we fired up the oven for the first time to bake. There’s nothing better than the scent of baking cookies, cake, or pie permeating each room. We still have more walls to paint, boxes to unpack and a nursery to finish setting up, but for one day we hit the pause button, got cozy and enjoyed the smell and taste of browned-butter pecan pie.
This pie is one of my favorites to make. It’s beautiful, tasty and relatively easy for any pie baker. It was actually one of the first pies I ever made. My personal problem with Thanksgiving baking is that I tend to underestimate how much work and how long everything will take me, thinking I can make all the pastry, prep the fillings and bake multiple varieties of pie in just a few hours. Luckily, the browned-butter pecan pie is always one that I tend to fall back on when I start to get tired and just need something a bit more simple.
The pie can be made in any kind of pie plate. I’ve been experimenting with tart pans and quiche pans lately, too. The nice thing about using a tart pan is that there’s no need to decorate or really do much of anything with the crust’s edges. The pastry can simply be sculpted into the pan, flush to the edge and trimmed right off. A gentle roll over with a rolling pin gives a nice quick and easy trim to the edge of the tart pan.
I like to decorate the top of my pie with pecan halves to give it a finished look. Before I do anything with this pie, I usually start the preparation by sorting through my pecans to pull out the most perfect looking ones and keep them on reserve for the top. When placing the pecans, be sure to put them nice and close together, and almost overlapping as they shift a bit during the time in the oven.
Now it’s time for me to get back in the kitchen and get moving on my Thanksgiving baking for tomorrow, so I’m not up all night. Happy Thanksgiving and I hope your day is filled with all kinds of delicious foods!
Photography: Matthew Land Studios
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