Dad's Holiday Pie: Pumpkin Chocolate Pecan Pie

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking through old files on my computer, and I stumbled across a Word document containing a recipe I had, at some point in the last ten years or so, found on the Internet. When I saw the words, "Chocolate Pumpkin Pecan Pie," I knew I had to try making it. 

For you see, I had long been in love with the combination of chocolate and pecans in a pie. My ex-wife had found a recipe for chocolate pecan pie when we lived in Canada featuring essentially a pecan pie with a solid layer of chocolate on top. But when our family went to southeastern Ohio in the fall of 1995 and went to "Amish Country," we discovered a new creation: a fudgy pecan pie. It was served at the Homestead Restaurant in Charm, Ohio (which, yes, was very charming), and they called it a German Chocolate Pie. We eventually found a comparable recipe, and I loved it.

Our children in front of the Homestead Restaurant in 2000.

So when I saw this recipe that added pumpkin, I was keen to try it. I tried to find it on the Internet to give proper credit to the author but was not able to find it. I ended up altering the recipe a bit, so I'm just going to take credit and call it "Dad's Holiday Pie."

Here is the original recipe:

Chocolate Pumpkin Pecan Pie

1     cup chopped pecans

1/2  cup mini chocolate chips

1     tsp vanilla

1     cup canned pumpkin

4     tbsp melted butter

1/2  cup sugar

1     cup dark corn syrup

3     eggs

1     9-inch unbaked pie shell

Preheat oven to 350. Meanwhile, beat eggs well. Mix in the corn syrup, sugar, butter, pumpkin and vanilla on low until well-blended. Arrange 1 cup pecans and 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips in the bottom of the pie shell. Slowly pour egg mixture over them. Bake for 1 hour or until knife inserted 1 inch from edge comes out clean. Let cool completely before serving to allow the filling to set up.

I have learned from what little past experience I have in baking to make sure I have all the ingredients measured out and placed in separate containers. I have to do this; otherwise I would be quickly overwhelmed and stressed out.

A note about the ingredients I used to make the original recipe. I used raw sugar because that's what we had on hand. Not sure that was the best for flavor, so I switched to regular white sugar for the second attempt. I used Kroger chocolate chips and packaged pecans, along with Libby's canned pumpkin.

The shell was a Whole Foods white flour frozen crust in an aluminum tin. As I said in my first post, I am doing this cooking thing on my terms, and my terms dictated getting a frozen pie crust. Other cooks I know wouldn't dream of using anything but a homemade crust ... but I'm just not there yet. Us neophyte cooks have to accept ourselves where we're at.

The result was the pie pictured in the lead photo. While it was good, it was rather bland. We all felt it needed some spices and that it needed more chocolate, so I went back to make another attempt.

These are the changes I made on my second go:

• Add some spices: 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg.
• Put in a full cup of mini chocolate chips, instead of 1/2 cup, and changed to Whole Foods' brand of chips
• Changed to white sugar
• Changed to Whole Foods organic canned pumpkin
• Changed the corn syrup about to approximately 3/4 cup
• Added 1/4 cup of pure maple syrup (which we had on hand)

The result got very good reviews. The difference in the taste of the organic pumpkin was noticeable, for the better. The addition of spices made all the difference in the world. But there were some issues. The crust was very thin, and the additional chocolate chips and the maple syrup combined, I think, to make the filling a bit too liquid. And the cinnamon taste was a bit too strong.

The next time I made the pie, I decided I'd better check my vanilla and spice bottles for expiration dates. Ummmmm, it's a good thing I did. The vanilla had a date of sometime in 2011. The nutmeg had a September 2012 date (see below), and the cinnamon wasn't much better.

I'm going to write another post about things I learned from making this pie, including some lessons about spices. For now, I'll just say that I went to the store and got fresh spices and vanilla to use on the next go-round.

The next go-round was two pies for our family Christmas party. The only things I changed were using the fresh spices and reducing the amount of cinnamon to 1/2 tablespoon.

These were enjoyed, but I learned one more thing from this attempt. This pie needs not only time to cool, but it should also be refrigerated a few hours prior to serving in order for the filling to completely set. I'm also thinking the amount of chocolate chips should be reduced to 3/4 of a cup, and I'm also going to use Pillsbury's frozen pie crusts that can be unfolded into a glass pie plate instead of a frozen crust in a tin. I'll try these changes on Tuesday while Mark's sister and brother-in-law are here for a few days' visit. Then, it will be time to publish the definitive version of my recipe for Dad's Holiday Pie.