Luby's Butternut Brownie Pie
Luby's Butternut Brownie Pie is a unique pie made with egg whites, pecans, sugar and graham crackers.
Servings 8
Cost 5
Ingredients
- Butter or shortening for rubbing pie plate about 1 tablespoon OR 1 fully baked pie crust
- 5 large large or 4 "extra large" egg whites
- ⅛ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar or just leave it out
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200 grams)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 14 squares graham cracker broken into half inch pieces or crushed
- 1 cup chopped toasted pecans (90 to 100 grams)
- Optional: ¼ cup of butterscotch chips worth throwing in if you have some
Topping:
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 3-4 tablespoons granulated sugar or ¼ cup powdered
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. (Note: Other recipes use 300, but I use 350).
- Rub a 9 inch glass pie plate generously with butter. Alternatively, have ready a pre-baked pie crust.
- In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites and baking powder until soft peaks form. Add cream of tartar, beating constantly. Gradually add 1 cup of sugar, beating constantly until stiff peaks form. Beat in vanilla. Using a rubber scraper, fold in graham crackers and chopped, toasted pecans. Pour mixture into pie plate (or baked pie shell) and bake for 30 minutes.
- Let cool completely on a wire rack. The pie will sink a bit as it cools.
- Prepare topping. In a chilled bowl, using chilled beaters, beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add sugar and vanilla and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Do not overbeat. Top pie with whipped cream. Garnish with extra pecans if desired.
Notes
As mentioned, the crust is optional. Since i enjoy making it, I usually use the quick Crisco recipe and bake it covered with foil and weighed down with pie weights at 425 for 20 minutes. I then remove the foil and bake at 375 for about 8 minutes. After that I let it cool completely before filling and re-baking.
The graham crackers should be broken or coarsely crushed with a rolling pan. If they are crushed too fine, the texture is kind of mealy. In the original recipe they are broken, but I usually take a rolling pin to them and have a big mess of broken and crushed. Feel free to use more graham crackers. For the pecans, make sure they're toasted. I love buying the pre-roasted, pre-chopped pecans from Trader Joe's. In addition to the graham crackers and pecans, about ¼ cup to ⅓ cup of butterscotch chips in a nice addition, but they do increase sweetness.
