Eat This While You Read That: Rob Howell

I think this may be the best book I've read all year that was published this year. If I did that sort of thing, I'd nominate it for an award. And not only is it an excellent read, but it's a debut novel. You don't see this much awesome in one place very often.

I wasn't too sure about this at first. Debut novels tend to have... issues. Yeah, issues, that's the word. I had put a call out for more ETWYRT authors to come play (I'm always taking suggestions) and Rob responded. I didn't know him, and wasn't too sure. I try to include folks in this series that I can send my readers to, without fear of quality. So, I bought Rob's book before I committed to accepting him. I read it. The First Reader read it. You can read a review here. A Lake Most Deep is worth buying and devouring.

So his book impressed me. I asked for a recipe, and, well, Rob blew us away one more time. Try it, he suggested, you might like it...

Assembling the ingredients in one place. This is not a complicated recipe.

A rich, buttery, but not-too-sweet pie of Canadian origins. Serve just slightly warm and curl up around the rest of Rob's book to finish it. You'll feel like purring, take it from me.

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The pie crust, pierced and ready to bake. Pie weights are better but I don't have room for all the kitchen stuff I want!

The 'batter' for the filling is paler than for pecan pie.

The First Reader looked at the kitchen while I was working on this and asked "what's the difference between this and a pecan pie?" Good question. This has less eggs, less sugar proportionally, and most important, it doesn't have the molasses. I used less nuts than I would have for a pecan pie (although you could put in more). The results were a lot more buttery, less sweet and gooey than a pecan pie can be, and the prebaking of the pie shell kept it crispy under the candy-like filling. I was serious when I said salted caramel - that's what this pie is like.

A Butter Pie, or Butter Tart, all read to go in the oven.

When you are serving it, you'll find that you have three layers: the crisp, flaky pie crust (I'm using my lard Pie Crust recipe), the gooey middle filling, and a candy topping that has been heat-crystallized into something like toffee.

A finished Butter Pie with the crusty top of the filling and nuts showing.

It's not a big pie - you'll note the aluminum pie plate I used - but you really don't want it to be. Because you will eat this. It's not so sweet that it makes your teeth hurt, and there is something about the flavor that just got both of us.

Gooey caramel-licious filing and crisp pie crust. Mmmmm