Pecan Tassies

In December Annie and I went to Barnes and Noble to set around and read the Christmas magazines, and buy one or two. Well in looking at all of them I spotted a recipe for pecan tassies. The week earlier I had been talking with the manager of the Starbucks near my house and she had mentioned that she'd really liked her husbands grand-mothers pecan tassies. But she didn't write down the recipe, and perhaps she said that the grandmother was no longer with us. So I told her I'd seen the recipe in a certain magazine. But then I check that one, and there was not pecan tassie recipe. The I began looking in all the British cooking mags and could find it nowhere. Well today I spotted it the BBC Good Food magazine for January 2010. I'm completely baffled by this whole thing, but here's the recipe.

Pecan Tassies

pastry:

50g pecans

50g full-fat soft cheese

50g butter , softened

50g plain flour , plus extra for dusting

note: 50g = 1 3/4 ounces

filling:

85g pecans (3 ounces)

1 egg yolk

50g light brown sugar

2 tbsp maple syrup

½ tsp vanilla

1 tbsp butter , melted

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. To make the pastry, whizz the pecans in a food processor until finely ground, then pulse in the remaining ingredients with a pinch of salt until the dough just comes together. Lightly flour your hands to prevent sticking, then roll the dough into 12 small balls. Use your fingers to gently press them into the bottom and up the sides of a 12-hole mini muffin tin. Chill in the fridge while you make the filling.
2. Toast the pecans in a dry frying pan for 3-5 mins until lightly toasted and smelling aromatic. Cool a little, reserve 12 of them, then roughly chop the rest. Whisk the remaining ingredients with a pinch of salt, then stir in the chopped pecans.
3. Bake the pastry cases for 5 mins, then remove from the oven. If the pastry has puffed up a little, gently press it down with a teaspoon or your fingers. Spoon 1-2 tsps of the filling into each of the pastry cases, then top each with a whole pecan. Bake for 15-20 mins or until the crust turns golden and the filling is set. Leave to cool a little in the tin. Eat warm on their own, or with some cream whipped up with maple syrup.