Handy Pecan Pie

This recipe from Pioneer Woman makes a fantastic pecan pie muffin. 

From my notes after making them for the first time...

A few changes for the next batch. Make sure to use salted butter or add a dash of salt. Add a splash of vanilla. While they were good and simple and come in under the 5 ingredient rule, they need something to brighten or intensify the flavor.

The recipe calls for mixing the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately and then gently mix them together. The tricky bit is to make sure that the butter is not too hot or to temper the eggs. If you pull the melted butter directly out of the microwave and dump in the eggs you will get scrambled eggs and not in a good way. Melt the butter first and then allow it too cool. If you are impatient you will need to temper the eggs, but mixing small amounts of hot butter into the eggs SLOWLY. It will be easier to wait.

Do NOT skimp on greasing the muffin cups. Like pecan pie, these can be sticky. The amount of butter in them helps but…

Another thing, you need to keep mixing the batter slightly as you put it into the muffin cups. Just like in a pecan pie, the pecans float to the top and if you aren’t aware of how you are distributing them you will end up with lots of nuts in the first muffins and few in the last.

I used 350 degrees for 22 minutes with normal sized muffins in silicone pans. it made 12 good sized muffins rather than the 8 described in the recipe. I will try them in the mini pans at some point in the future.