Pecan Pie Slice

Eight weeks down in the Great American Cooking Challenge and so far I have made Chocolate Chip Cookies, Sticky Pork Ribs, Apple Pie, Jambalaya, Roast Turkey, Apple Cobbler (disaster), Seafood Chowder and now a Pecan Pie inspired creation. This weeks challenge was to make Pecan Pie, but after a long week trying to find alternatives to the essential corn syrup which for some reason is not readily available in Australia and one day after attending an awesome Vietnamese Cooking Class with the Bent on Food Cookery School, I was in no mood to make pastry. Instead, I made a sneaky base to which I added a Pecan Pie filling, with maple and golden syrup as an alternative to corn syrup. The result was sweet and delicious!

Ingredients

Base

1 340g packet of butter cake mix
1 cup coconut
125g butter, melted

Topping

1 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 melted butter
3 eggs, well beaten
1 cup of pecan halves, roughly chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 c
2. Lightly grease and line a 16 x 26cm slice tin.
3. Combine butter cake mix, coconut and butter in a large bowl.
4. Press mixture firmly into slice pan. Bake for 11-15 minutes until just beginning to firm. Remove from oven.
5. Increase oven temperature to 200 c
6. In a large bowl combine the sugar, maple syrup, golden syrup, water and melted butter. Add the eggs and pecans and stir well. Pour onto partially cooked base.
7. Cook in 200 c oven for 10 minutes before reducing the heat back to 180 c. Cook for a further 20 minutes or until topping is firm and golden. After 15 minutes watch slice closely as it will burn quickly.
8. Allow slice to cool to almost room temperature before cutting. Serve with a dollop of fresh cream.

Do you have a good Pecan Pie or Pecan recipe to share? You can link it up here:

Next week the challenge continues with Gumbo. Do you want to make Gumbo with me? You can come back next Sunday and share your creation. If you don't have a blog to link up but you want to participate, you can join Cookin' the Books on Facebook and share your photos there or you can post your photos to Twinkle in the Eye on Facebook. Alternatively, you can share your photos on Twitter and use the hash tag #americancook and tag me @twinkleite.