Pecan Pie

Preheat your oven to 180C (fan) and lightly grease a 24cm loose-bottomed tart tin.

Place a 30cm piece of cling film onto your worktop and dust well with the gluten free flour. Pop the chilled shortcrust pastry dough on top of the cling film, then greaseproof paper on top of the dough.

Use a rolling pin to roll the pastry out to 0.5cm thick in a large circular shape - wide enough to completely cover the tart tin and sides. If there's any breaking or uneven edges you can just patch them up easily with other pieces of pastry.

Carefully ease the side of the pastry onto the floured rolling pin, then carefully slide onto the tart tin.

Gently tuck the pastry into the tin, pressing down to completely cover the base and around the sides. Use a sharp knife to slice off any excess pastry (you can save these offcuts in the fridge for later use). You should be left with a nice neat edge.

Use a fork to gently prick holes in the base of the pastry case. Place the used greaseproof paper on top of the pastry and tin, adding baking beads to fill (see image below) so that you can "blind bake" the tart. Place it into the oven to blind bake for 10 minutes at 180C. (note you can start preparing the pecan pie filling while the case is baking).

After this, remove from the oven, lift out the baking beads and greaseproof paper and return to the over to bake for 10 minutes at 160C (fan). Then remove from the oven and set aside.

To make the pecan pie filling, place the butter, light brown sugar, golden syrup, salt and cornflour in a non-stick saucepan. Heat for 10 minutes over a low-medium heat, stirring occasionally, to dissolve the sugar. Then turn the heat up to medium and allow the mixture to bubble gently for 2 minutes.

Turn off the heat and wait for the bubbles to disappear. Then add the vanilla essence and stir through. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

Crack the eggs into a large heatproof bowl and whisk. Slowly pour the warm butter-sugar mixture into the bowl, whisking constantly to ensure the mixture does not split.

Now add the pecans to the mixture and stir until they are well-coated. Then carefully pour the pie filling into the pie case, until it almosts reaches the top of the case.

Place into the oven to bake at 170C (fan) for 45 minutes. Once baked, carefully ease it out of the tin and onto a wire baking rack. Allow to cool for 2 hours before serving (as the filling will need to set). Then serve with a scoop of ice cream, dollop of clotted cream or simply as a standalone delicious treat!