Walnut Honey Pie

• Servings: Makes one 9-inch pie, which usually serves about 8.

This old fashioned pie recipe is adapted from one distributed by New York City's Greenmarket program.  While it includes a cup of honey, it's not as sweet as you may think due to honey's more complex flavor. 

This pie is an alternative to pecan pie, which is almost always made with corn syrup.  You could substitute pecans for the walnuts or leave the nuts out entirely.

Ingredients

• 1 cup honey
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/16 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 cup coarsely-chopped walnuts
• 9-inch unbaked piecrust (buy pre-made or see recipe below)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325º F.
2. In a small bowl beat the eggs until combined. Hold aside.
3. In a 3 to 4 quart saucepan bring the honey just to a boil, liquefying it. Let it cool for two or three minutes -- enough so that when you combine it with the eggs you won't scramble them.
4. Working off the heat, add a little of the honey to the eggs to bring them up to temperature (again, to prevent scrambling them) and then completely add the eggs to the honey and immediately stir to combine.
5. Add the remaining ingredients -- the melted butter, vanilla, salt, nutmeg and chopped nuts and stir to combine completely.
6. Pour immediately into the prepared pie shell.
7. Bake in the center of the oven at 325º F until the center is set and the pastry is golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes.
8. Let cool to room temperature before serving.
9. Optional: Serve with whipped cream

Pastry Dough for 1 Piecrust

1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, very cold, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 to 4 tablespoons iced water (this is approximate; you may need more)

Making the Pastry Dough

1. Place the flour, sugar and salt in the basket of a food processor.  Pulse once to combine.
2. Sprinkle the diced cold butter over the flour mixture.  Plus 4 or 5 times, one second for each pulse, to combine until the butter and flour together resemble corn meal.
3. Transfer this mixture to a large mixing bowl and add the ice water, a tablespoon at a time, and with a fork combine until large clumps form and the dough starts to hold together.  If you need more than 2 tablespoons, sprinkle additional ice water gradually, in tiny amounts so that you don't get it too wet (although if this happens, don't panic; just gather up the finished dough and pat it with small amounts of extra flour until it achieves a tender, workable consistency).  Adding the ice water by hand and not all at once in the food processor gives you vastly more control and a better, flakier result.
4. Gather the dough into a ball, flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about a half-hour. (You can make the dough up to a day in advance, keeping it in the refrigerator.)
5. When ready to assemble the pie, remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll to a circle about 1-inch larger than your tart pan and about 1/4-inch thick.  Using the rolling pin, transfer the pastry dough to the pie plate and position it into place, trimming the edges so that the dough is even to the top of the rim of the plate.
6. Chill the finished dough in the pie plate until you are ready to assemble and cook the pie.