Peanut Pie

 

Sweet and salty and good as it can be, Southern peanut pie is the real delicious deal.

Though not equal to the grand dame of Southern piedom, pecan pie, peanut pie has long had a loyal and enthusiastic following, and it quickly  earns a place of honor anytime it’s given a chance. Peanut pie is another variation on the chess pie theme, with coarsely-chopped dry-roasted peanuts stirred into a sugar-butter-eggs mixture. Baked until the nuts create a handsome textured covering for a sweetly silken filling, it makes for a salty-sweet flavor that was cherished long before salted caramel came into its current vogue on the sweet culinary stage. You’ll find peanut pie throughout the South, wherever peanuts are grown, but the state of Virginia has a particular affection for this fine confection. One place to enjoy this classic is the Virginia Diner in Wakefield, Virginia, about sixty miles southwest of Richmond on Route 460. Family-owned since 1929, the Virginia Diner serves up homestyle Southern cooking everyday except Christmas, and is particularly famous for its classic peanut pie.  A visit to their website at        http://www.vadinerrestaurant.com/ will give you a virtual taste of their cooking and ambience, and may cause you to look for your car keys if you are homesick for good old-time Southern food. They serve their signature peanut pie warm with both whipped cream and a scoop of vanilla ice cream; I like peanut pie with whipped cream or just plain, speaking for myself. Like its fellow pies in the chess pie family, peanut pie will puff up and seem dry around the edges, and be fairly firm all the way through once it is done. The puffy quality fades away, but no matter, the finished pie evens out to a beautiful and tasty state.

Nancie’s Peanut Pie

 

1 unbaked piecrust

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 cup dark corn syrup

2 tablespoons molasses, or 2 additional tablespoons dark corn syrup

1/4 cup butter, melted (1/2 stick/4 tablespoons)

*1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped dry-roasted peanuts (if unsalted, add about 1/4 teaspoon salt)

Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, combine the sugar, flour, and salt. Stir with a fork to mix them together well. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs well. Add the dark corn syrup, molasses, and melted butter and stir with a fork or a whisk to mix them together evenly. Add the sugar mixture and stir to dissolve the sugar and combine everything together evenly and well. Stir in the chopped peanuts and mix well. Pour the filling into the piecrust. Place in the 375 degree oven and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce the heat and bake until the filling is puffed up all over, fairly firm throughout, and crust and filling are nicely browned, 40 to 50 minutes. Place on a cooling rack or a folded kitchen towl, and cool to room temperature.

*Note on Peanuts:

You can leave them whole, but most recipes suggest coarsely chopping them. You can do this with a cleaver or a chef’s knife, or use a rolling pin or large unopened can to crush them.  First place about 1/3 of the peanuts inside a sturdy resealable plastic bag. Have them at the bottom of the bag and lay bag on its side. Leave it unsealed. Roll over the peanuts with the rolling pin or unopened can, so that many of the nuts are crushed, or partly crushed, while a few remain whole. Pour into a small bowl and set aside until needed.

Black Walnut Pie for October 7th

 

 

Black walnuts are having their high season throughout the South, but unlike pecans, they don't lend themselves to contented fireside evenings of cracking nuts for cakes, candies, and pies. Look for shelled black walnuts in the produce section and then stir them into this old-time dessert.

 

Though they seldom appear on standard lists and menus, black walnuts are both growing on today trees and widely available for purchase in supermarket produce sections and by mail order. Even back when they were familiar as a Southern pantry ingredient for baking and sweets, buying them shelled was common practice and shelling them for sale a good little home-based business, given the ordeal of extracting the treasure from the proverbial tough nut to crack. I remember their distinctive flavor from my childhood. I loved them in fudge or in pound cakes, and most likely encountered them only at big gatherings at  Christmastime and June family reunions, when the old-school cooks presented their fine handiwork and watched it disappear. Until I began working on Southern Pies, I had never had black walnuts in a pie. For today’s pie, I picked up a bottle of Karo syrup at the grocery store and followed the pecan pie recipe on the label, using 1 1/2 cups of black walnuts in place of the pecans. The pie came out wonderfully, and the combination of earthy black walnuts and silken chess-pie filling made for a worthy autumn dessert. Fortunately for me, it was meeting night, and since we still have apple pie in the cupboard at home, I carried most of the black walnut pie out to church, where my fellow Racial Reconciliation Ministry members pronounced it worthy indeed. Few of these brand-new fans of black walnut pie had come across these nuts before, but judging from the condition of my pie plate (almost shiny-clean, with naught but a scattering of crumbs and a wavelet or two of syrup), they would like very much to hear of them again. I can do that. My supermarket here in central North Carolina carries black walnuts in the produce section throughout the cool weather months (baking season), but if you don’t find them easily, check the major national source, Hammons of Stockton, Missouri, for mail order information. <www.black-walnuts.com>. (888) 429-6887.

Black Walnut Pie

I adapted this recipe from a pecan pie recipe currently on the label on bottles of Karo Dark Corn Syrup.

1 unbaked deep-dish 9-inch piecrust

 

1 cup dark corn syrup

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups black walnuts (about 6 ounces)

 

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Stir together the syrup, eggs, sugar, melted butter, and vanilla in a medium bowl, using a fork or a whisk to combine everything smoothly, evenly and well. Mix in the black walnuts and stir well. Pour this filling into the piecrust and bake in the center of the 350 degree F oven, until the filling is puffed up and fairly firm, with a little softeness remaining in the very center, 45 to 60 minutes. Place on a cooling rack or a folded kitchen towel and let cool for two hours.