Whenever I go to Avoca (an Irish restaurant that cooks delicious food) I cannot resist this pie. I've looked for the recipe for years with no success - it's not in the Avoca cooking books, and all my attempts at modifying similar recipes yielded disappointing results. Then, finally, some days ago, I found the recipe on the Internet and tried to reproduce it. Perfect! That was it! The problem is that this pie has done nothing but calling my name until I ate at least half of it in a few days! But it was worth it: taste it and you won't be disappointed!
Tools:
- a pie dish
Ingredients:
for the pastry
- 224g plain flour
- 127g butter
- 28g caster sugar
- 2 free-range egg yolks
- a little cold water
for the filling
- 226g dark chocolate (53% cocoa contents, OR half dark chocolate with 70% cocoa solids and half milk chocolate with 30% cocoa solids)
- 113g butter
- 113g caster sugar
- 113g brown sugar
- 113g plain flour
- 142g pecan nuts
- 2 free-range eggs
- 1 drop of vanilla extract
to decorate
- dark and white chocolate buttons
Method:
for the pastry
Sift the flour into a large bowl. Dice the butter and add it to the flour, then rub the two together until they look like fine breadcrumbs. Add the caster sugar, then the egg yolks and a little water if necessary, and mix well. Make up a ball, wrap it in cellophane and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Rub some butter onto the pie dish, then sprinkle it with flour and shake out the excess. When the pastry is ready, roll it out onto a lightly floured surface. Helping yourself with a rollin pin, transfer it onto the pie dish. Don't worry if it breaks, you can easily fix it with your fingers! Push it onto the base and sides of the dish and pierce its surface with a fork.
for the filling
Pre-heat the oven to 160 ºC. Cut half the chocolate into chunks, then pour it onto a large bowl and add both types of sugar, the chopped pecans, vanilla essence and flour. Mix well.
Melt the butter, add it to the other half of the chocolate and mix well until it has melted. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones, add the eggs and mix well.
Pour the mixture onto the pastry, then bake for 35-40 minutes until the sides have settled but the centre still has a little wobble in it. Decorate it with chocolate buttons.
Delicious served warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Be careful, you won't be able to stop eating it!
