Dough.

Place about two thirds of the flour, all of the sugar, and the salt into a food processor and pulse twice to mix. Then spread the butter pats evenly across the surface and pulse until the dough just begins to come together. Sprinkle the remaining flour on the surface and pulse again until just incorporated. 

Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle with the water 1-2 tablespoons at a time. Using a rubber spatula, work the water into the dough so it begins to hold together. Do not overwork your dough. 

Once incorporated, divide into two disks, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for ~2 hours. Remove from fridge, roll out, and place in pie pan. *Note: you want this crust slightly salty as the pecan pie filling is quite sweet, so if you don’t use salted butter, be sure to add a little extra salt.

Pie.

Heat oven to 400. Par bake the pie crust for 15 minutes in heated oven using pie weights (or dried beans in my case) to weigh it down. Remove from oven and lower temperature to 350.

Whisk together sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla. Add eggs and whisk thoroughly until combined. Brown butter in saucepan over medium-high heat (until it turns brown… stirring so as not to burn). Gradually pour butter into the egg mixture (slowly… so as not to scramble your egg!).  Mix in the two cups of chopped pecans.

Spoon pecan mixture into pie crust. Now you’re going to use that last cup of whole pecans to get super fancy, placing them around the top of the pie so the end product looks as pictured. 

Bake for 20 minutes in the oven, then remove from oven and cover with tinfoil so the crusts do not burn. Another 30 minutes in the oven and the middle should be set. Let cool and serve at room temperature with the fresh maple cinnamon cream!