Say you’ve had a long day at work and want to relax with some wine and a nice, decadent dessert. Or you want to have a girls’ night in with all your friends and need a chocolatey pie to indulge yourselves in. The answer is turtle pecan pie. Nowadays, you can find many variations of this dessert: turtle cheesecake, turtle brownies, turtle milkshakes. The pie itself wasn’t even the original—no, first came the turtle candies.
In 1916, George DeMet opened a little candy store in Chicago, IL and began selling his perfected confection: a cluster of pecans coated with caramel and chocolate. The combination of the sweet and salty was golden, and soon his one candy store turned into three, and then boomed until it became America’s favorite candy. Why is it called a turtle? Well, the rumor is an employee saw the cluster of nuts and said it reminded him uncannily of a turtle, and the name stuck. As George DeMet’s business grew, he invented other kinds of turtles including hazelnut and cashew style. However, the classic turtle cluster is what remains the most popular and whose flavors make up the famous turtle pie to this day. After a hundred years of growth in popularity and profits, it seems that DeMet had the right idea. 7,000 tons of chocolate and 1,000 tons of nuts are used each year at the DeMet factory—get your own sliver of this decadent heaven by baking a pie inspired by DeMet’s delicious candies: chocolate turtle pecan pie.
Chocolate turtle pecan pie recipe
Ingredients:
- 4 ounces of unsalted butter, plus 3 Tablespoons
- 1 egg
- 1 Tablespoon of salt
- 1/3 cup of sugar, plus 3/4 cup
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups of flour
- 7 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate
- 1 1/3 cups of heavy cream, plus 1/2 cup
- 1 cup of pecan pieces, roasted
- 3/4 cup of dark corn syrup
- 1 cup of chocolate sauce in squeeze bottle
- Whipped cream in a pastry bag with star tip
- Fresh mint sprigs
- Powdered sugar in shaker
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees. For the crust, whip together 4 ounces butter, egg, salt, 1/3 cup sugar and vanilla together. Add the flour and incorporate completely. Form into a ball and turn out onto a floured surface. Roll the dough out to 14 inches wide and 3/4-inch thick. Blind bake the shell for 10 minutes in a tart pan.
- For the filling. Melt the chocolate and 1 1/3 cup cream together. Pour into the baked shell and chill for 1 hour. Top the ganache with the roasted pecan pieces and chill for another hour.
- For the caramel: Combine the corn syrup, 3 tablespoons butter, 3/4 cup sugar and 1/2 cup heavy cream. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook until the caramel reaches the thread stage (210 degrees). Allow the caramel to cool before pouring over the top of the ganache. Place a piece of the pie in the center of each plate. Garnish with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, mint sprig and powdered sugar.
