Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

Do you say pee-kan or puh-kahn? See how you compare with the US in this cool linguistics map (in my opinion, the second way is clearly better, hehe).

While an American classic, pecan pie is surprisingly a fairly recent invention, really only from the 20th century. While come argue that pecans did appear in pies the end of the 19th century, it’s not the same “pecan pie” we think of today (Food Timeline and Burnt Orange Report).

Fun fact: Pecan pie is the official dessert of the state of Texas. Wise choice!

Pecan pie is as southern as it gets, until you add a little bourbon, which makes it ultra southern. Bourbon is alcohol made from grain with at least 51% corn (vs whiskey which is any fermented mash of grain). So all bourbons are whiskey, yet not all whiskeys are bourbon. Another requirement for bourbon is that it has to be produced in the US – notably Kentucky, where 95% is made. So any drink labelled bourbon is 100% American made.

Pecan pies are my dad’s favorite pie, and we bake it every year for Father’s Day. This year, I decided to change it up by adding a blackbottom chocolate layer (although it became more of a black-allover layer with the amount chocolate I added) and flavored it with delicious bourbon.

Dad may be an endocrinologist, but he has quite a sweet tooth (ironically, every endocrinologist I’ve met really loves desserts – maybe it’s their fascination of glucose). Although I’ve cut the sugar and use dark chocolate, this is probably still not the best pie for diabetics. Adapted from David Lebovitz in Food and Wine.

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

Ingredients
1 9-inch deep dish pie crust, bought or homemade
2 cups pecans
3 large eggs
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons bourbon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 – 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate (chips or chopped squares)
chocolate sauce, to drizzle

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375°F and blind bake the pie crust for about 10 min, covering the edges with foil to avoid it browning too much.

Lightly toast the pecans (about 5-10 minutes). In a large bowl, whisk the eggs with the brown sugar, corn syrup, melted butter, bourbon and salt together. Stir in the pecans. and

When pie shell is done blind baking, evenly fill the bottom with your chocolate. Pour the filling into the pie shell on top of the chocolate. Bake in the oven ~ 55 minutes, or until the center of the pie is set.  Check on the pie as it’s baking; tent the crust with foil if the edge is browning too quickly. Let cool for 1 hour and drizzle decoratively with chocolate sauce before serving. Enjoy!

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17 Comments

  1. I say puh-kahn, and that looks delicious! I'd love to make it, but I live in Denmark and much to my dismay, I can't find corn syrup, chocolate chips, or pecans here. Pecans sometimes show up around Christmas in tiny packages that cost a king's ransom.

  2. Yum, this looks great! The linguistics map is pretty cool. I prefer saying it puh-kahn though I'm usually outnumbered by the other pronunciation!

  3. Yum-O! I learned from Joy the Baker that bourbon is great for baking, but haven't tried it much. This pie looks fab and would be the perfect excuse to buy a bottle.

  4. that is one super dense and thick pie! and all that density and thickness is due to some spectacular ingredients, so i heartily approve of what you've done here. 🙂