Mom's Pecan Pie

What completes the perfect Thanksgiving dinner better than pecan pie?  As soon as I wrote what was meant as a rhetorical question, I answered it anyway – pumpkin pie, cherry pie, apple pie, as long as it’s pie!  But I’ve legitimately (meaning before my change of allergies) had those pies before.  Before the big change, pecan pie had way too many eggs in it for me to splurge. I actually don’t remember the last time I had tasted it.  I know there are many recipes out there, but this post is specifically dedicated to my Mom’s Pecan Pie, which was also her mom’s pecan pie.

You can imagine that I was dying to eat dessert throughout the entire dinner.  I was careful not to overindulge on the turkey and stuffing so that I could overindulge on the pie.  It was definitely worth the wait: nutty brown sugary sweetness, the taste of home, a nostalgia that I couldn’t quite place.  I’m sure I had stolen a sliver of this tempting dessert in the past, but that’s not what I was remembering.

Have you ever experienced this before? Tasted something that transported you to another time, another place, but you just couldn’t recall where or when? Luckily after devouring two pieces of pie, I dropped into a welcome turkey (pie?) coma and the burning question didn’t drive completely crazy.

It wasn’t until the next day during a pre Black Friday shopping snack, consisting of, you guessed it, another piece of pecan pie that I realized or maybe my taste buds realized where I had tasted such yumminess before. It wasn’t from the pseudo pecan pies we tried making without the eggs – still delicious, but without the fluffiness, more like bar cookies or candy than pie.  Pecan pie actually reminds me of a dessert we used to eat a lot when I was growing up, a dessert that only has pecans and sugar in common with the pie.  What is this dessert? Pineapple Dump Cake!

There is no pineapple in pecan pie, but the combination of the pecans and the brown sugar reminded me of my favorite part of the cake; that deep sugary sweetness.  The dump cake is made with layers: pineapple, brown sugar, cake mix, butter, coconut, pecans.  This got me wondering if coconut would be a good addition to the pie.

Of course, I’m not the first person to thing of this!  Mom informed me that her Aunt Mae does that with the recipe.  I love Mom’s Pecan Pie, but I think I want to try Aunt Mae’s Pecan Pie too.  And why not?