Pumpkin Pecan Pie

I didn't get a pretty shot of the pie because it tended to fall apart when I cut it, so I opted to show the flakiness of the crust.  Pretty or not, it was a big hit at our house.

Like so many others, I don't own a deep-dish pie pan (because I don't make deep-dish pies), so I used Rose's pie pan and told myself it was a semi-deep-dish pie.  A deepish dish pie.  I figured if things looked really bad, I'd just make a very thin layer of pumpkin.

All very good things in the pecan pie mixture:  eggs, butter, cream, brown sugar, and Lyle's Golden Syrup, the magic ingredient.

And, of course, pecans.

I'll confess that I'm not 100% obedient to the instruction to "have ready a fine mesh strainer."  Most often, I do, but sometimes if the mixture appears lumpless, I skip it.  A very good thing I didn't try to fudge on the sieving step this time, or I would have ended up with scrambled eggs and pecan pie.  They're both things I love to eat, but I don't think they'd be a match made in heaven.

The pecan pie out of the oven.  I'm feeling cheered because it looks like there's plenty of room for a pumpkin layer.

I've made many a pumpkin pie in my day, but I've never before cooked the pumpkin puree.  Maybe cooking it made it smoother, but the real difference in taste came from using dark brown sugar.  Light brown muscovado would probably have been even better, but I didn't have any.  My grocery store used to sell it, but apparently I was the only person in Minneapolis who bought it, so now I have to get it from trusty old Amazon.

The pumpkin filling went all the way up to the top, with one spot looking like any little jiggle would send it out of the shell.

Overcooked by a hair, or maybe by a hank of hair.  And why do I have those two dark brown blobs?  If I'd been thinking, maybe I could have somehow figured out how to cover the blobs with pecans.  Or made them into two eyes of a monster face, although then it would be more like a Halloween pie than a Thanksgiving pie.  You can't really see the shine in the picture, but the pecans were so pretty after they were brushed with corn syrup.

Served with whipped cream, the two-in-one pie was spectacular.  My pastry-loving daughter was delighted.  She loves both kinds of pies, and she thought that having them together increased their deliciousness.  She usually turns down offers of dessert to take home, but she said "yes" to the offer of this pie so quickly it made me think she believed I might rescind the offer.

It's tough to choose whether this pie or the frozen pecan pie from last year is the better Thanksgiving dessert.  I guess I'll have to keep trying them both until I figure it out.