Tarte Aux Noix

I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately. Before christmas, we found walnuts on sale at a local market and bought four one-kilo bags. Now, what to do with walnuts ? Actually, that's not a hard question at all.

My basic pâte brisée, blind-baked and ready to receive the filling.

I made a walnut pie, une tarte aux noix, which is a French classic. But I made it with a twist. Since Ken is from the south (of the USA, y'all), he grew up eating pecan pie. So I made a pecan pie with walnuts instead.

Ingredients assembled for the walnut pie.

First, of course, the crust is made and blind-baked. Then the ingredients are assembled. I cracked about 250 grams of walnuts the night before, so they were ready to go. The walnuts are toasted and cooled and lightly chopped.

The baked pie cools before serving.

Also included are three eggs, 250 ml of maple syrup (imported, of course), about a half cup of granulated sugar, a bit of salt, and four tablespoons of melted butter. Sorry about the mixed measurements; French recipes tend to use weight measures and American recipes use volume measures for dry ingredients. I was looking at French and American recipes for this pie.

A delectable slice of sweet, nutty goodness.

It all gets mixed together, with the nuts, then put into the hot pre-baked shell. Then into the oven until it's done. Serve it cooled or just warm (not hot). And, oh là là, y'all can bet it was some kinda bon !