So! I’m back! I’m finished my masters (which involved plenty of procrastination on my part) and I finally have more time to devote to baking! My friend Lisa over at Mettle Magazine asked me to bake something with an autumn themed for them (which was definitely the kick I needed to get back to blogging). Bear in mind, this was posted in October over there, I’m just a bit behind on posting it up here too.

All I could think of was pumpkin related desserts. Don’t hate me, but I’m just not that excited by them. I mean, they’re fine (it’s still dessert after all) but I’d rather carve a pumpkin than eat one.
Instead of going with some sort of Halloween inspired baking, I decided it’s the season to eat everything, so why not make something rich and decadent. Bikini season is over so it’s time to stop kidding yourself and gorge on all the cake or in this case, pie (not that summer stopped any of us doing that before).

I tried this pie years ago in Avoca and fell in love. So I was very excited when I stumbled upon this recipe this recipe. The only thing that might make it better would be some salted caramel sauce. Drool.

A slice (or seven) of warm gooey chocolate pecan pie, a mug of tea and series to binge watch, all accompanied with a pile of comfy blankets sounds like the perfect way to spend a cold evening indoors. Seriously though, don’t eat seven slices in one sitting… Although I’m not one to judge if it’s done so over the course of one day, let’s say.

For the Pastry:
225g flour
130g butter
2 egg yolks
Cold Water

For the Filling:
225g dark chocolate
115g butter
115g caster sugar
115g brown sugar
115g flour
140g pecans
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

Directions:
Begin by making the pastry. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Stir in the caster sugar. Then add the egg yolks and a bit of cold water to combine into a dough.

Wrap in cling film and leave the dough to cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

While waiting for the pastry to chill, you can start making the filling to speed things up. Preheat the oven to 160°C.

Chop up half of the chocolate (using chocolate chips would have helped with this step) and also chop the pecans. Mix these with both sugars and the flour.

Melt the butter and the other half of the chocolate together, and mix this into the dry ingredients.

Add in eggs and the vanilla to the mixture.

Take the dough out of the fridge now and roll it out on a floured surface. I just greased my tin without lining it and it worked fine, so I’m leaving it up to you to decide.

Place the dough in a round tin, about 25-30cm. A loose-bottomed tin would be easier but it’s not essential (I couldn’t find one).

Pour the filling into the pastry case and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes.

There may be still a slight wobble in the middle. Leave to cool for a few minutes and then dive in head first. It’s recommended you dive in with some vanilla ice cream on hand.

Embrace your inner pig by shovelling pie in your face.