NJPerkins

Alligator Pie!

This delightfully simple variation on Pecan Pie is not only delicious, but just plain fun.  The green "Alligator" color comes from a couple of drops of green food coloring.  Optional, but if you have kids of any age in the house, it's hard to pass on the green.  Is it the middle of March?  Call it Shamrock Pie!

Ingredients

Topping:

• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup Dark Karo Corn Syrup
• 2 Tbl cornstarch

Pie:

• 8 oz package of cream cheese at room temp.
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 1 unbaked 9" deep dish pie crust
• 2 packages (4 oz ea) of pecan halves

Alligator Pie

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°.

• In a medium bowl, thoroughly combine or cream together the first 5 pie ingredients.
• Add your 2 drops of food coloring as desired.
• Pour into pie crust.
• Top with pecan halves.
• Use a little of the dark Karo to help dissolve the cornstarch, and then thoroughly blend the topping ingredients.
• Pour the topping over the pecans.
• Bake 45-60 min until the pie sets up*.
• Cool, slice and enjoy.

Additional Notes

*I used a Pyrex glass pie plate placed on a cookie sheet in the oven, so my pie took about an hour to set up well.  Your cooking time may vary.  The pie is set well enough when it puffs up some, does not appear to be liquid, and even starts to crack some (the filling).   Also, I tried out a new pie crust recipe this time, so I made the crust from scratch, but any pie crust approach you want to take works fine.  I'll be posting the pie crust recipe soon, so watch for it.  And I'm not kidding about calling it "Shamrock Pie" for St. Patrick's Day... why not?  Enjoy.