No Corn Syrup Caramel Pecan Pie Recipe

Bold Bakers, it is pie season and I'm not going to show you the same old traditional pecan pie. I'm going to share with you a recipe for a caramel pecan pie, a pie that has lovely caramel tones, really great ingredients, no corn syrup, and it's absolutely delicious. We're going to start by making my sour cream pastry first. This is a lovely compliment to the filling in this pie. So I've made a pie crust a million times before. This recipe is on BiggerBolderBaking.com and all you do is rub butter into dry ingredients like flour, a little bit of sugar. But rather than add water to your pie crust, I'm going to mix it with sour cream. The sour cream gives it a lovely acidic flavor, but it also tenderizes the crust, so it does two things. It makes for a really flaky, delicious pie crust and has a little bit of extra fat for goodness. So during the holiday season, I always make my pie crust in advance, keep them in the freezer and then you will be ready to go in any pie emergency. So I'm going to flour my countertop. My dough is at room temperature. So if you've followed me for a long time, you'll know I've got a million different pie crusts, so you can use any that you want, but I really love this one for this pie, just because the sour cream adds a nice little bit of a zing to the pie. So roll your pie crust to around 10 inches. Look at that. You see how beautifully this pie crust rolls? Really lovely. So over the years working as a pastry chef, I have found that some pastry can be tricky to work with, but my pie crusts are pretty foolproof. Now here's a little trick that I only learned recently. Can you believe that? I'm going to take a pizza cutter and I'm going to just go around and trim off those jaggedy edges of my pie crust to make sure I have a lovely smooth edge and a nice finish. Can you believe I trained as a pastry chef 20 years ago and I only learned that trick now. So here I have a nice deep pie pan. I like it deep because we have a lot of filling and I'm going to lay my pastry in there just like that. And then we have excess to crimp like so. Now I'm doing a simple crimp. We're going to get our two fingers and push between my fingers to get a nice kind of a scalloped edge. I can't remember who it was. I think it was Erin McDowell. I saw her one day trimming pastry with a pizza cutter or with a knife or something. I thought that was absolutely genius. And there you go. Look at that. Lovely. I'm very delighted with this. My pies turn out so I'm very happy. So now usually in recipes you'll often see for pies that have like a big filling is to blind bake the pie crust. And I have to say I have no patience for blind baking. However, I do know an amazing trick that I learned over 20 years ago on culinary school how you can skip that step and do something much easier. Follow me. So if you put a pie crust ready to go in the pan in the freezer, it will actually eliminate the need for blind baking. I've done this so many times over the years and it works so fantastic. It freezes the dough. It means that you're going to shrink less and it stops the crust from rising up when it's baking, eliminating the need for baking beads, for parchment, for all that mess. It is foolproof. It is such a great technique and it works really well. So there's a little bit of a baking tip for you. So the filling for this pie, like I said, is caramel. So we're going to start out by making caramel on the stovetop. Here I have a heavy bottom saucepan and into it I'm going to add in some granulated sugar and a little bit of water. Now as always, when I make all my caramels, I follow the same rules, which is keep it on a low medium heat. Let the sugar dissolve first. Once the sugar is dissolved, then you are safe to let it simmer. If you don't let your sugar dissolve first, it can actually crystallize your caramel rendering it pretty much useless. So we don't want to do that. Once it's dissolved, you can turn it up a little bit and let it simmer away. So now what we're going for here is color. We want a rich amber color. I don't mind a little bit of smoke. A little bit of smoke is okay because that smoke means flavor. So let it get a little bit smoky, but don't let it go too far. I will tell you that caramel making takes patience. Believe me, I have very little of it and I know this firsthand. So just take your time and let it happen. So this deep brown color is exactly what I'm looking for. So now at this point, I'm going to turn off the heat and I'm going to add in my butter. Turn back because it will sizzle a little bit. And then I add in my cream. You're going to have a whisk in hand and you're going to whisk that until it gets nice and smooth. Feel free to stir this before it starts to simmer. But once it does simmer, no more stirring. And that's it. This is the delicious foundation for our pie. So follow me over to the countertop and we'll finish it off. So I let my caramel sauce cool down a little bit before we add in the rest of the ingredients. I'm going to add it into this big bowl here. So like I said, this pie doesn't contain corn syrup. Or normally a pecan pie would. So the difference is not just quality, but it's also flavor. Corn syrup, you know, it has texture. It works very well for having like an inverted sugar in there, but it doesn't have any flavor. So a caramel is an inverted like liquid sugar, but it has the butter, the cream, all of the yummy stuff and these other ingredients that we're going to add in. So into our cooled caramel, I'm going to add in some dark brown sugar. I like dark brown sugar because it has more flavor. I'm going to mix this in first. And I'm not just doing that just because I'm doing it to actually cool down the caramel even more. So next I have some salt. And salt is so important in pie making, especially when you have a big filling like this. Next I'm going to add in some vanilla extract, which is just a lovely flavor that we're all so used to in a pecan pie. And then I'm going to whisk in my eggs. It does help if they're at room temperature and they're not freezing cold from the fridge. They just mix in so much better. So give that a whisk until it's lovely and smooth. No lumps of butter. It smells so delicious. Lastly, we are going to fold in our chopped pecans. Now often when using pecans, I will say toaster nuts beforehand, you don't have to. This pie bakes for a very long time. They will get good and toasty when they're in there. Chopped fresh pecans. Lovely. And then here I have my frozen pie crust. Hard as the hubs of hell, but this is going to work so great for our pie. Now I know messing around here, you guys, straight in with your pie filling. One of the things I love about this pie is that you get a whole lot of caramel and like the right amount of nuts. I have to say one of my pet peeves, especially when you wait all year long for like a pecan pie is too many nuts in your pecan pie. And lastly, I'm just going to egg wash the edges of the pastry. You can do this prior to adding in the filling. Egg wash is super important because it gives you a lovely golden pie crust. So there you go. We want to make sure that it goes into the oven when that crust is still frozen. So follow me. So we're going to place our pie on a preheated tray. The oven has to be at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, 180 degrees Celsius, and we're going to bake it for around 40 to 45 minutes. The reason that I want you to use a preheated tray is because remember we didn't blind bake it and putting it on that hot tray during the baking will really crisp it from the bottom. So it's a really good idea. Our timer went off, so let's check on our pie. So you'll know when it's done, when it's kind of set on top, but there can still be a slight jiggle in the middle. That is totally fine. As it cools, it will set and firm up. Once your pie has completely cooled down, it is ready to serve. As you can see, this is a beautiful looking pie. It's a little bit rustic, but also quite elegant and pretty. And the fact that we made our own homemade pie crust is really next level. Pecan pie without corn syrup has a flavor that's more complex. The toasty toffee notes, subtle sweetness, and the combination of the ingredients really make this dessert shine. While your friends and family this holiday season, this is not one to be missed. So check this out. Fully baked, standing tall, brown on the bottom, pie crust. I mean, what more do you want from your pies this holiday season? So after seeing this pie, if you're in the mood for some more holiday content, then get comfortable. I have hundreds of videos for you to check out. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you back here again really soon.