Chocolate Pecan Lattice Pie

To make the pie crust, place flour and butter cubes in a food processor and pulse until the mixture forms pea sized pieces. Slowly add ice water 1 tablespoon at a time and pulse until the dough comes together in a ball. Transfer to a lightly floured bench top and bring together with one or two kneads to form a ball. Cut in half and flatten each ball into a disk. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll out half the dough on a lightly floured surface until you have a 30cm circle. Gently transfer the circle to a 22cm pie dish and press into the base. Trim the edge and refrigerate for another 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling. Combine butter and chocolate in a glass bowl and microwave on 50% in short bursts, stirring between each, until the butter and chocolate have melted and the mixture is smooth and glossy. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes, then add corn syrup, eggs, brown sugar and cocoa powder and whisk until completely combined. Add the chopped pecans and whisk again until combined.

Pour the filling into the chilled tart case and top with toasted pecan halves. Set aside in the refrigerator while you prepare the lattice top.

Take the remaining chilled dough and using small palm sized pieces of dough, pass them through the flat section of a pasta machine working from the thickest setting down to the middle setting until you have long lasagna shaped pastry. Then cut the dough into strips using the fettuccine section of your pasta machine until you have long strips. Weave the strips under and over each other on a rimless baking sheet lined with baking paper to make a lattice large enough to cover the top of the pie (you can include plaits using the strips also for added flair). Gently slide the lattice off the baking paper and onto the top of the pie cutting of the excess pasty around the edge. Using the remaining offcuts, roll and cut leaf shapes and place around the edge of the pie dish.

I use a pasta machine because I am terrible at cutting straight lines! Also, I love the precision of the pieces of dough that come out of the pasta machine and I can make more intricate designs with smaller strips. Never fear, if you don't have a pasta machine just roll out your dough to about 1/2 cm thick and cut lengths of dough by hand. 

Preheat oven to 170° Celsius.

Brush the top of the pastry with beaten egg yolk and bake the pie for 50-60 minutes, or until the filling has set and has puffed up.  If the top starts to become too golden while baking, cover with tented alfoil.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack completely before cutting and serving with dollop cream or a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.

NOTES

• The success of pastry has a lot to do with the temperature of the dough. Pie pastry is better when made in cooler environments because you don't want the butter to soften too much. If you find it hard to work with the dough because it is too soft, just put it back in the fridge to harden.
• If your pastry is too crumbly when rolling it out, or even after baking, then there isn't/wasn't enough moisture in the dough and you needed to add more water when making the pastry.
• You will have more pastry than you need depending on how you choose to decorate the top of your pie, I alway prefer having more pastry because it is much harder to match the texture of your initial dough it you have to make another batch. Any left over dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen to be used for other sweet or savoury pies. Simply defrost the dough overnight in the refrigerator when you want to use.
• The filling will puff up when cooked, but once the pie cools it will settle a bit.
• If you don't cool the pie sufficiently, the pastry will crumble when you try and cut it. Try to avoid digging into the pie straight away and instead, leave it to cool to room temperature before cutting in.