Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Food: Recipes, cookbook reviews, food notes, and restaurant reviews. Unless otherwise noted, I have personally tried each recipe that gets its own page, but not necessarily recipes listed as part of a cookbook review.

Honey pecan pie for Π Day

Jerry Stratton, March 12, 2025

For Pi Day this year, consider a pecan pie flavored with honey instead of corn syrup or molasses. You can never have enough pie. And you can never have enough pecan pie. Put it in a whole wheat crust and you can even pretend it’s healthy!

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Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Mrs. Walter T. Kelley
Review: My Favorite Honey Recipes (Jerry@Goodreads)

Ingredients

  • 1 cup honey
  • 3 well-beaten eggs
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • ¼ cup milk powder
  • ¼ cup butter
  • 1-½ cups pecan pieces
  • ½ tsp vanilla
  • a 9-inch unbaked pastry shell
  • ½ cup pecan halves

Steps

  1. Whisk the honey into the eggs.
  2. Cream the sugar, milk powder, and butter together.
  3. Whisk the sugar into the eggs.
  4. Stir in the pecan pieces.
  5. Stir in the vanilla.
  6. Turn into pastry shell.
  7. Top with pecan halves.
  8. Bake 375° for 40-60 minutes.

I know I just did a pecan pie two weeks ago for Texas Independence Day. But you can never have too much pecan pie, and Friday is Pi Day. Why not extend it to 3.1416 and make it a Pie Weekend from Friday the 14th to Sunday the 16th?

It may take that long to finish this year’s pie.

Banana pie in a whole wheat crust: A banana pie in a whole wheat crust from the 1975 Wheat for Man.; whole wheat; pie; bananas

Wheat for Man’s whole wheat crust was also great with banana pie.

Honey Pecan Pie slice: A slice of Mrs. Walter T. Kelley’s Honey Pecan Pie.; pie; pecans; honey

A wonderful crunchy top, honey-flavored gooey insides. A great pie.

Pecan pie with ginger cream: A slice of pecan pie with ginger cream cheese.; pie; pecans; refrigerators; ginger

A dollop of ginger cream cheese was pretty good on this pie, too.

Both the pie and the crust come from people with a deep partiality to specific ingredients. The pie shell is from Dora D. Flack, Mabel H. Miller, and Vernice G. Rosenvall’s Wheat for Man. This otherwise standard whole wheat shell adds both an egg and vinegar to the ingredients. Replacing some of the water with a bit of vinegar is always a great idea when making pie crusts—at least as long as there are no competing flavors such as orange juice, or 2023’s beer.

Wheat for Man is a whole wheat cookbook. It caught my eye mostly because of the recipe for “Wheatnuts… similar to commercial Grapenuts.” I used to like Grape-Nuts a lot, but they’ve lost the malty flavor I used to enjoy about them. Since this recipe includes malted milk powder, I thought it’d be worth trying, and it was.

But that’s not what I came to tell you about. I came to talk about the pie. And I was very pleasantly surprised by how wonderfully flaky and rich this pie crust is. The recipe makes enough for three eight-inch shells or two ten-inch shells. How much it makes for nine-inch shells will depend on how much you like pie crust. I like a lot, so I divided the dough into two discs when I made this pie. I’m pretty sure you could divide it into three and be fine if you enjoy a thinner crust.

Or, if you enjoy math, divide it into two-and-a-half, and make two nine-inch pies and one 5 inch pie.

In any case, I stored the extra disc in the freezer for several weeks and used it for a banana custard pie. That was a great use for a whole wheat crust, too. While pecan pie needs a rich crust, banana pie does well with both rich and light crusts.

Whole wheat pecan pie

Egg-Vinegar Whole Wheat Pie Crust

Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Wheat for Man: Why and How (Internet Archive)
Review: Wheat for Man (Jerry@Goodreads)

Ingredients

  • 2-½ cups sifted whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup chilled lard
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 beaten egg
  • 1 tbsp vinegar
  • 6-8 tbsp ice water

Steps

  1. Sift the flour and salt together twice.
  2. Cut the fat into the flour to large pea consistency.
  3. Combine the egg, vinegar, and six tablespoons ice water with a fork.
  4. Blend into the flour with a fork, adding just enough ice water to hold together.
  5. Divide into two (for a 10-inch shell) or three (for an 8-inch shell) balls and flatten into thick discs.
  6. Roll on a floured surface, as normal, for pie.
  7. If prebaking, bake 8-10 minutes at 425°.
  8. Store unused discs in refrigerator or freezer.

The pie filling for this year’s pie came from Mrs. Walter T. Kelley’s My Favorite Honey Recipes. The Kellys ran a beekeeping supply company, and had a vested interest in promoting the use of honey. This book is not hard to find, and, although it comes in several variations I’m pretty sure any of them is a worthwhile addition to your collection if you like honey. I was very impressed with her rice and honey flavored custard/pudding. It’s a one-pot dump recipe for rice pudding, and it ends up perfectly flavored of honey.

According to her bio in later editions of the book, she retired from the family beekeeping supply company in 1978 and subsequently “tested and compiled these honey recipes”. Judging from the recipes I’ve tried so far, she did a great job of testing.

All of her recipes tend to do their best to replace as much of the other sweeteners as possible with honey. Her popcorn crunch is butter and honey. The aforementioned rice custard pudding uses honey and vanilla. The pie does use a bit of sugar, but that’s likely because you need granulated sugar when creaming the sugar with butter to get the right effect. Except for the two tablespoons used for creaming with the butter, the rest of the sweetener is honey, with milk powder and vanilla for flavoring along with the pecans.

The combination makes for a nice flavor and a great way to treat your friends this year for Pi Day.

Honey Popcorn Crunch: Honey Popcorn Crunch, from Mrs. Walter T. Kelley’s 1979 My Favorite Honey Recipes.; seventies; 1970s; popcorn; honey

Honey caramel corn… for breakfast.

Honey Rice Custard Pudding: Rice Custard Pudding, from Mrs. Walter T. Kelley’s ca. 1979 My Favorite Honey Recipes.; rice; pudding; honey

Mrs. Kelley’s honey rice pudding is one of the best rice puddings I’ve had.

Pineapple Crunch 5-inch pie: A pineapple-crunch pie in a 5-inch pie tin, from the 1968 Pillsbury’s Bake Off Dessert Cook Book.; sixties; 1960s; pie; pecans; pineapple; Pillsbury

Unrelated to today’s pie, except to show off a five-inch pie tin.

Wheatnuts in milk: Wheatnuts, from the 1975 Wheat for Man.; seventies; 1970s; breakfast; whole wheat; cereal; granola

Wheatnuts are basically biscotti in milk. NTTAWWT.

In response to Lemon icebox pie for Pi Day: Are you ready for Pi Day? If you trust your eggs, there is nothing like pies made from beaten egg yolks and egg whites.

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