Guest Post: Part 2-Gelatin, Chocolate Ganache, and Salted Brown Butter & Pecan Pie Recipe

Ingredients

Crust
• 1 1/2 cups finely crushed pecans
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 tbsp honey (optional)
• 1 dash salt
Filling
• 3 cups heavy cream, divided
• 1 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 2 packets of gelatin (about 4 1/2 to 5 tsp, total)
• 6 yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup Swerve
• 1 tsp salt
Ganache
• 2 1/2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate squares, broken and chopped
• 1 tbsp butter, cubed
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup Swerve

Instructions

1. First, start by putting a small pot on the stove. Measure out 2 cups of cream and place it on the stove to slowly reduce. Be careful not to let it boil over. The reduction process can take over an hour, but can go faster if you’re attentive, stir often and watch it over a higher heat. I tend to go super slow and just go do other things around the house.
2. Reduce the cream until it breaks and starts to color. Look for something that resembles a nice "sand at the beach" (floating in yellow butter fat). Much darker than a nice sandy color and it gets bitter. Too light in color and ... the flavors are not developed as well as they could be. It's a very fine line! Should be light brown/tan.
3. Once it's like little pebbles and the color of sand at the beach, set it aside. Keep it warm, but not "hot".
4. Pre-heat oven to 325 F.
5. If your pecans are not crushed, place them in a large plastic (ZipLoc style) bag. With a mallet or the edge of a pot or pan, whack at them until you have a squooshed bag of pecan explosion. (I've tried this in a food processor and for whatever reasons the imperfect smashing method gives a better crust than nuts pulverized in a food processor)
6. Pour your crushed pecans into a mixing bowl and add your honey (you can skip the honey, but it does help to hold the crust together), and melted butter. Mix the ingredients until the nuts are well coated with the honey and butter.
7. Grease a 9-inch pie pan.
8. Press the nut mixture into the pie pan. Use the back of a spoon (or a tamper, if you have one) to press the crusts firmly into the base and up the sides of the pan. Really get in there and press it firm.
9. Bake the crust for 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove and allow the crust to cool.
10. Mix together your remaining cream and almond milk.
11. Pour 1/2 cup of your cream-almond milk mixture into a mixing bowl. Evenly sprinkle your gelatin over the entire surface area of the cream-almond mixture in the mixing bowl. Set the bowl aside, to allow the gelatin to “bloom”.
12. Place a large pot of water on the stove to boil, or the base of a double boiler.
13. Pour the remaining cream-almond milk mixture into a saucepan and bring it up to a very low simmer. Once it simmers, whisk in your vanilla, sugar equivalent and salt. Whisk until the sugar and salt have completely dissolved.
14. Put your egg yolks into the top of a double boiler, or in the base of a mixing bowl which is wider than the mouth of the pot of water on your stove. Whisk the eggs until they are broken and a little frothy. Pour a small amount of your hot cream-almond milk mixture into the egg yolks and briskly whisk. This will prevent “scrambled eggs”. As you whisk, continue pouring the hot liquid into the yolks. Be sure you continue whisking as you do this, or else you’ll end up with scrambled eggs (or very small egg particles).
15. When you are done whisking the cream-almond milk mixture into the eggs, SLOWLY whisk in your broken browned cream mixture. It’s imperative that you do this carefully. Do not just “dump it in there” and whisk it, as it will stay broken. We need to re-emulsify this broken solution into the egg yolk mixture. Start by pouring a slow stream of the butter fat into the yolk mixture, while whisking. Continue pouring and whisking, until you get to the browned grainy lumps at the bottom. Pour these in, as well! When you are done, you should have a DELICIOUS light yellow mixture with little browned sandy flecks spread throughout.
16. Place this bowl over the top of your boiling water and continue whisking, so that it slowly heats up, but without the edges of the bowl ever cooking the eggs. Keep it moving in the bowl. If the bowl gets too hot, remove it from the top of the water for a minute, while whisking, then place it back over the top of the water. The heat from the steam will “cook” the bottom of the bowl at approximately 212 F. When the mixture coats the back of a spoon and/or hits a temperature of about 165 F, you can remove it from the stove.
17. Pour your hot custard base over the top of your gelatin and whisk. Whisk until the gelatin is completely dissolved.
18. Pour your custard mixture into your prepared pie crust and place in the refrigerator to cool. Allow it to chill for about 6 hours (or overnight).
19. To make your ganache, heat up your cream on the stove. Once your cream is hot and is about to simmer, whisk in your zero carb sugar equivalent, until it has dissolved.
20. Place your chopped chocolate pieces and butter cubes into a small mixing bowl. Pour your hot cream mixture over the chocolate and whisk it in the bowl, until the chocolate is fully melted and incorporated.
21. Pour your chocolate into a squirt bottle and squirt parallel lines of chocolate over the top of the pie, until half of the ganache is gone. Turn the pie about 90 degrees and spread the other half in a similar manner, but beware the inevitable “spray” that occurs near the end of the chocolate! (if you don’t have a squirt bottle, you can just spread this in an even layer over the top of the pie with a spatula)
22. Chill the pie for about 30 minutes, to allow the chocolate to firm up.
23. At this point, your pie is done! You can optionally add some whipped cream around the rim, to hide the “seams”, but this is totally optional.
24. Slice and eat! (Tip: if you heat a knife under hot tap water for 30 seconds, then wipe it dry and slice the pie, you’ll get a cleaner slice. Heat and dry the blade between each slice for clean perfect slices!)
25. Enjoy!

Notes