Dissident Island

Pie building blocks:

For pastry:

125g Plain Flour
75g Vegan Margarine
A pinch of Salt
3-4 tablespoons of soy milk (or cold water if you have no soy milk)

For pecan filling:

2-300 g toasted unsalted pecan nuts (you can toast them yourself)
175 ml water
150g unbleached white cane sugar, see note
75g brown sugar (yes, you'll need both kinds of sugar!
salt (pinch or two – to taste)
35g cornstarch or wheat starch
4 1/2 tablespoons of rum or bourbon
2 tablespoons vegan margarine
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
tiny dash of lemon juice, ground cloves, cinnamon, and then a bigger dash of ground nutmeg – adjust more or less for personal taste

Directions

To make the crust:

Before you are ready to make the pecan mix, you'll have to make the dough. You can do it the easy way (throw everything minus 25% of the liquid stuff) into a food processor and let it do the messy hard work – OTHERWISE – you can get your hands dirty (you better have clean fingernails) and take the ingredients into a bowl and mash them all together with your hands until you get a dough ball that is pliable, will roll out – so not too wet but not too dry. You'll know when you've mixed it right! Take the dough ball and put it somewhere cold for 20 minutes, since it'll be easier to roll out...

To make the pecan mixture:

Mix the cornstarch with a couple tablespoons of water in a bowl. In the mean time, put the water and sugar into a sauce pan over a high flame. Bring this to a boil, and boil rapidly for 5 minutes. Then add the cornstarch+water mixture and a pinch of salt. Whisk this continuously and quickly. Eventually the mixture will get thicker and sort of syrup-y. Remove the sauce pan from the heat and mix in the margarine, vanilla, alcohol, spices and pecan nuts. Pour the well-mixed pecan mixture into the half-baked pie crust and bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until your pastry on the sides of the pie pan start to turn golden brown. Keep in mind it will not set (meaning the pie filling will not become solid) in the oven like a cake would do. It'll still be a little bit jiggly when you take it out. To let it set, leave it to cool for at least 2 hours. Then it's ready to eat! Well worth the wait!!

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