Mini Pecan Pies

Mini Pecan Pies

serves 4 cooks in 30 difficulty two

Naturally Sassy Creator: Megan Hallet

I’m a big believer in eating seasonally, with autumn food being my favourite by far. These miniature pecan pies are the ultimate comfort food and make for the perfect way to finish off any hearty, autumnal meal.  They’re a great make for cosy gatherings with friends, as their individual size makes them perfect finger food. The gooey, creamy date caramel filling compliments the buttery, maple pecans so well, it’ll be hard to resist eating just one!

 

The Ingredients

For the Pastry:

1½ cups of rolled oats

1 cup of ground almonds

½ cup of maple syrup

¼ cup of smooth almond butter

¼ vanilla pod (scraped)

 

For the Pecan Top:

1 cup of pecans

2-3 tbsp of maple syrup

A dash of cinnamon

 

 

For the Date Caramel:

8 medjool dates, pitted and soaked for 20 minutes

¼ cup of warm water

A dash of cinnamon

 

 To Top:

1 x 100g Dark/Raw Chocolate

Sea Salt

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 180C. Start making the pastry dough by blitzing the oats in a food processor until a fine flour forms. Add in the rest of the dough ingredients and blend, until fully combined and the dough holds together. If too crumbly, add a little water.

 

2 ) Dust a clean surface with a little gluten free flour and roll the pastry out, you’re looking for a thickness of around ¼ – ½ cm. Take one of the tart tins and cut out the pastry for each tin, you may want to line the tins with baking paper to ensure nothing sticks. Press the pastry into the tins and bake for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them to ensure they don’t burn.

 

3) Whilst the pastry cooks, roughly chop the pecans for the topping, and coat with the maple syrup and cinnamon. Spread out on a lined baking tray and roast for roughly 10 minutes as well. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

 

4 ) To make the date caramel filling, place the soaked dates into the food processor with the warm water and dash of cinnamon. Blend until completely smooth and creamy, this may take a few minutes. Remove the pastry cases from the oven and generously spread the date caramel into each pie tin.

 

5 ) Top each pie with a handful of the roast pecans.

 

6) Melt your dark chocolate by bringing about an inch of water to the boil in a saucepan. Place a heatproof bowl onto the mouth of the saucepan and stir as the heat slowly melts the chocolate. Drizzle evenly over the pies and add a pinch of sea salt to finish them off.

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