Pecan Pie Gets Even Perkier with Cultured Butter in the Crust
The Bakehouse’s best-selling pie is “butter” than ever!
I have long believed that the Bakehouse Pecan Pie is one the tastiest things we make. I’m not the only one. Amy Emberling, co-managing partner, wrote in the book Zingerman’s Bakehouse, “This is my favorite Bakehouse pie, just because I enjoy it and also because it fits our mission perfectly—full flavored and traditional.” Want an outside affirmation? It’s been acclaimed by the Detroit News, featured in In Style magazine, and carried many years ago to Paris by Frankie Andreu’s wife to help him celebrate the Tour de France bicycle team victory! To state it simply, this is a pretty darned exceptional pecan pie. Muscovado brown sugar is one of the “secrets.” In the spirit of time management, it takes just as long to put this amazing sugar in our pie as it would take to use industrially refined brown sugar, but the flavor that the Muscovado brings to it is about 55 times better. As Amy elucidates, “What makes the difference between a good version [of pecan pie] and a great version is the quality of the ingredients and their proportions.” This includes using “real vanilla and flavorful butter.” Packed with flavor, mammoth halves of Western Schley and Pawnee pecans help the finished pie shine.
Like the Cultured Butter Croissants and the Ginger Scones I’ve written about in the last couple of weeks, the Bakehouse’s really good pie crusts just got a whole lot better. The difference is that we’re now making them with Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter. If you haven’t yet tried the butter, now is the time. You can enjoy it on its own, in Bakehouse pastries, or at the Roadhouse, where it’s in the Buttermilk Biscuits, served with the Bakehouse Bread appetizer, and in the Butterscotch Pudding, Anson Mills heirloom grits, mashed potatoes, and the terrific Trout Meuniere that’s on the specials list this month. I saw a Bakehouse customer buying a stick of the Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter the other day. When I told her in passing how terrific it is, she smiled and responded with enormous enthusiasm: “This is the best butter ever! It’s so good! We go through it so fast in our house! I could just eat it with a spoon!”
When the butter is that good on its own, it’s pretty clear that it’s going to elevate the flavor of any pie crust you put it in. And sure enough, that’s the case. Our Pecan Pie crust is so tasty, some of the crew have told me they’re now eager to just eat it on its own. As Jalen Johnson, longtime Bakehouse staffer and a member of our ZCoB-wide Governance Committee, says, “It’s the real deal!”
