Bella nut trials

I named my pecan pie after my second daughter who has always marched to the beat of her own drum.  She's a bit of a challenge and always has been...probably always will be.  But, she's so darn sweet and lovable.

my sweet Bella helping me cut-in the butter

Which is exactly what my pecan pie recipe has turned into.  A bit of a challenge, but oh so sweet. It's impossible not to love it and all it's sticky, caramelized nutty goodness.  My husband is loving these baking trials because my pecan pie is HIS pie.  It's his very favorite and I usually make it just for him.

I knew getting my pecan pie filling into my pocket pie crust would be difficult.  But I wanted to give it a try.  I refrigerated the filling so it would be thicker than normal. Folding it into my little pockets wasn't the issue.  I sealed the edges really tight but within five minutes of baking all the sugary filling had oozed out of all my little pies onto my Silpat.

tasty rejects

I quickly scooped them into a muffin tin so I wouldn't waste all the delicious crust and nuts.  You better believe I ate these little ugly pecan pie failures.  They were scrumptious.  Just not so easy on the eyes.

Do over...

I washed my muffin tin and decided that cutting circles of dough to press into the muffin cups would give me mini Bella nut pies.  Still hand held but not a pocket.  The pie filling really needs a cup to sit and bake in.  The end result was even more delicious because the gooey filling thickened and crystallized properly.

mini Bella nut trials-still a work in progress

I still need to work on the proportion of pie filling for each cup.  The crust also needs to fill all the way to the top of the muffin cup and even a bit over like a full sized pie because the sugar filling hardens and sticks to the edge for the muffin tin if any of it bubbles over (which is exactly what happened on most of my little pies). 

I guess this is what trials are for!  We all tasted the reject pies and agreed that if we are going for taste-we are spot on.  Curb appeal still needs some work.


My husband is eager for me to make a few more mistakes so the trials of the Bella nut pies can continue!