maple pecan pie and the american breakfast

Maple syrup is really tasty. I was, therefore, extremely happy to come across a pie recipe to use it in since I mainly contain my syrup use to pancakes (and oh how I love pancakes – I had my twelfth birthday party at a Pancake Parlour and my cake was the biggest pancake I had ever seen).

The recipe for Maple Pecan Pie was from the Williams-Sanoma Pie & Tart cookbook.

I made this pie for an occasion. I was having my parents over for dinner, for the first time since moving to my one-bedroom flat in 3054 over a year ago. My parents have a fondness for pecan pie (largely due to the pecan pie scene from When Harry Met Sally) so this pie was a perfect fit. I only hoped it wouldn’t be too sweet. When I saw that the recipe called for 2 cups of syrup to be reduced to around 1½ cups I knew it would be a little too much. I have found that when using American recipes, it’s best to cut back on the sugar included otherwise it’s just too sweet for my palate.

I got to work cooking the base and making the filling,which mainly consisted of syrup, pecans and brown sugar. I filled the crust shell and kept the pie on the bench until it was time to pop it into the oven (if only I had a window sill for such occasions!).

As I got the rest of the dinner ready, I started thinking about how lacking my pancakes-for-breakfast intake had been, especially when going out for brunch. I always want to order pancakes but decide it best to order an egg dish. In America, you don’t have to make such decisions. There are places you can go where both eggs and pancakes are included in the same meal. Amazing. American breakfasts are the absolute best. A few years ago, during a trip to NYC, a friend and I spent a Sunday morning walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and ended up at Bubby’s for breakfast. It was one of the best meals I’ve had. Being able to order the usual eggs and bacon with pancakes and then drizzling syrup over the whole plate is liberating. It’s not quite so accepted here. You can sometimes find French toast and bacon on a menu but I feel that we’re ready for that next step.

Back to the pie. It was a-MA-zing. I served it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. My parents insisted they take the leftovers off my hands and I grudgingly obliged.




Next stop, S’mores Pie and The Baby-Sitters Club.