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Devil with the Blue Dress on….

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These Mini Pecan Pies (or Pecan Tassies) are a perfect dessert for after a big family meal. Who wouldn’t want a mini pecan pie?

Mini Pecan Pies (or Pecan Tassies)

Some may call BS when I say I am a rule follower.

But really, I am.

I never even got detention once.

Because I was smart enough to know how to push the right buttons but always within the limits.

The year of the Costco dresses, case in point.

At the time I had what some may categorize as a highly passive-aggressive vice principal.

She gave me lots of suggestions over the years from why I should get married (even though I wasn’t really dating anyone), if I wasn’t going to marry a man (hint are you a lesbian?) that it might cause strife for the school, and there was the time that she told me to quit going to graduate school so I could go to the PTA meeting.

All illegal FYI.

This VP was always dressed up nicely.

She was an administrator, that was her job.

Though I found her insane to wear pantyhose in the hot months of Phoenix, AZ.

Unfortunately, because she dressed so well, she assumed everyone else should.

I had taught lab science for too many years to learn that good clothing and that subject don’t mix. Because they day you do wear something nice is the day you get hydrochloric acid on your dress.

Plus I was an involved teacher, often down on the ground with the kids. Sometimes I would even go to PE with my class just to have them see me in a more relaxed setting.

So I wore pants. A lot.

This VP was obsessed with people wearing dresses, or at least skirts.

The one day I did wear a dress, she kept making a point over and over about how good I looked.

How I should wear a dress every day.

She even wrote me notes.

Showed me picture of professionals wearing dresses compared to pants.

And in her true passive-aggressive way, she let me know that she loved the dress, just maybe not with those shoes.

And so it festered.

It is not good when something festers with me.

Mini Pecan Pies (or Pecan Tassies)

One day, shortly after all the dress talk, I was at Costco.

They were selling these dresses that were one step down from a muu muu.

Cheap, under $10 a piece.

They had 4 colors.

And so I bought all four colors.

Every Monday I wore the blue one.

Every Tuesday the purple.

Wednesday was spirit day at school so you were allowed to wear jeans and a school t-shirt.

Thursday was the gray dress.

Friday was the black dress.

This was what I wore the rest of the year.

With Doc Marten boots (since I got note from my doctor saying I needed to wear such footwear…I did not).

Sure I looked HORRIBLE. It made me look twice as big and about 16 months pregnant.

But I was proving a point.

All with in the rules.

One day as I was leaving my dog jumped up on me and got mud everywhere.

I was forced to wear the Thursday dress on Tuesday.

The kids were screwed up for the rest of the week.

At the end of the year in the slide show whenever my photo would pop up the kids would shout out “it’s Friday” because I was in my black dress.

Or “it’s Tuesday” because I was in purple dress.

The great thing about it was that you never had to think about what you were going to wear that week.

At the end of the year, those dresses were given away.

We even had a party to say goodbye to them.

The next year I went to back to wearing what I wanted.

Point made.

Nothing ever said again about what I was wearing on body or feet.

Today was the big TEA Party day across our nation.

Now, I am not in favor of it, as I feel it is hard to say we have taxation without representation, when in fact we have representation, and we all just voted about 6 months ago.

BUT I do appreciate anyone going out and protesting for what they believe in.

In honor of such an event, I made these Mini Pecan Pies (or Pecan Tassies) to go with whatever tea might be being served!

I found these on a website when I was browsing.

I liked that they used a cream cheese crust and corn syrup in the filling.

Hope everyone gets your taxes in on time…the clock is ticking!

P.S. It’s a great day to buy my cookbook. 

Mini Pecan Pies (or Pecan Tassies)

Want more Pecan Recipes?

Whiskey Pecan Upside Down Cake

Fireball Caramel Pecan Topped Chocolate Cinnamon Flourless Cake

Maple Pecan Swirl Bread

Apple Praline Snickerdoodles

Croissant Bread Pudding with Pecan Toffee Sauce

Mini Pecan Pies (or Pecan Tassies)

Mini Pecan Pies (or Pecan Tassies)

Ingredients

  • Tassie Filling
  • 1 cup pecan halves
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 1 ½  cups packed dark brown sugar
  • ½  tsp vanilla extract
  • ¼ cup light corn syrup
  • 2 TBSP unsalted butter, meltedCream Cheese Dough
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour-measured by fluffing, scooping and leveling
  • 2 TBSP powdered sugar
  • 1 TBSP Bourbon
  • Pinch salt
  • 8 tablespoons (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cold
  • 8 ounces cream cheese, cold
  • ¼ tsp  vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F with an oven rack in the middle of the oven.
  2. Spray-grease three nonstick mini-muffin pans.
  3. For the filling:
  4. Chop the pecans to medium-fine dice.
  5. In a bowl, whisk together the ingredients.
  6. For the pastry:
  7. Place the flour, powdered sugar, Bourbon, vanilla extract, and salt in a food processor bowl and pulse-process to mix the ingredients together.
  8. Cut the butter into ¼ inch chunks, add to the processor and pulse on and off, until the mixture looks like coarse meal.
  9. Add the cream cheese, by tablespoonful to the processor.
  10. Pulse-process until the dough just starts to come together (about 10, 5-second bursts), and then turn it out onto a board. Press the dough together into a cohesive mass and then divide the dough into 48 balls.
  11. Assembly:
  12. The easiest way to press the dough into shape is to use a tart tamper, if not use your hands.
  13. To use the tamper, place a ball in each cup and tamp down on each ball, lightly, just so that the dough is centered and fills the cup.
  14. Dust the tamper with flour and then press down gently, and not all of the way to the bottom, just until the dough starts to curl around the top part of the tamper bulb.
  15. To get the tamper out of the dough, rock it side to side and pull up.
  16. Use the tamper to thin the edges of the tarts by patting it against the edges.
  17. Place the tamper back into the tart and push down until it bottoms out.
  18. Touch the bottom to make sure that it is neither too thin nor too thick, pushing the dough up or down to make it right.
  19. The dough in the bottom should not be so thin that you can see through it, nor so thick that it feels squishy when you touch it.
  20. Place ½  rounded teaspoonful of nuts into each cup.
  21. Spoon in 1 ½ to 2 tsp of the sugar/egg mixture, filling the tarts to within a scant 1/8-inch of the top.
  22. Do not fill the tarts up to the top, as the filling expands as it cooks and tarts that have overflowed are hard to remove from the pans after baking.
  23. Place the pans on a cookie sheet and bake for 23-27 minutes, until the filling is puffed and the pastry is lightly browned.
  24. Remove the pans to a cooling rack.
  25. Let the pastry stand for 5 minutes.
  26. While the pastry is still warm, run a skewer along the top edge of the pastry to loosen it from the pan and then remove the tarts from the pans.
  27. Set the tarts on a cooling rack to cool completely.
© Peabody
Mini Pecan Pies (Pecan Tassies)

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Comments

  3. As a recently retired teacher, I understood immediately your need for the right clothes while at work. Your VPrincipal sounded suspiciously like a harasser of some kind, doesn’t she? My favorite part was you having to wear the wrong dress on the wrong day. My own students thought it was a banner day when 1) I would wear make-up–“Do you have a meeting or something?” and 2) I had new shoes. PS I want to make some of those pies!

    Reply

  5. What a fabulous and hilarious story. I love that you “followed the rules” and made your point at the same time. I hope that VP was sufficiently embarrassed.

    Reply

  6. If I were around the full batch of those tassies, I’d need one of those Costco dresses for real!

    Fun story – I really can’t believe you sustained such a regime. Impressive!

    Reply

  8. I should read your post, but really all I can concentrate is how much I just want to stick my tongue in the middle of one of those tassies…

    Thank God Passover ends tomorrow.

    Reply

  9. Haha. Great stories. I love teaching people those kinds of “lessons”. These mini pies look great. The perfect thing to serve at a party.

    Reply

  10. What an awesome story! I bet her mind was spinning. I love the mini pies. I’ll have to keep them in mind for parties, because I love pecan pie, but it’s so nice to have something bite-sized like this.

    Reply

  11. Oh Peabody! I have written to you a few times before about loving your posts, or recipes or asking questions, but this post made me laugh out loud. I was just envisioning the whole thing playing out, with the notes, comments and dresses – HILARIOUS!!!
    As an elementary school art teacher I seriously value the fact that I am allowed to wear jeans and sneakers to work, since it makes sense with the kind of work I do. I so love that you shared this with us – makes me love your blog even more, which I did not think was possible.

    Thanks!
    Sarah

    Reply

  12. That’s an awesome story. I love that you continued it for the entire year. But now I’m kind of messed up–if it’s Devil in the Blue Dress, shouldn’t it be Monday? 😉

    Reply

  13. I love your dress story. I think my favourite part of working at the restaurant may be that I never have to worry about what to wear… uniforms are great. Well, except for the fact that they’re not made for girls… Or that they sometimes think it’s funny to give me the short pants so that they’re practically capris…

    Reply

  14. What a hysterical story! I love that the kids could tell the days of the week by your dresses. How awesome. I love sending messages “within the rules”–you’ve totally summed up my style! Oh and these mini-tarts. Um, yeah, AWESOME!

    Reply

  16. Wow, such commitment! I could not have followed through. I used to have to wear all black for work and it drove me crazy. I was always wearing black with small prints of color. I can’t believe you did it.

    Pictures please 🙂

    Reply

  17. Oh how that story delighted me. Being told how I should look is not something I’ve ever enjoyed. My mom still slips in passive aggressive comments on my short hair, which means I always make sure it’s freshly cut before seeing her 😉

    These little tea treats look lovely, and they make me deeply regret being allergic to pecans.

    Reply

  18. I laughed at two points in the story. When you mentioned the dock martins, and when I read this;
    “At the end of the year in the slide show whenever my photo would pop up the kids would shout out “it’s Friday” because I was in my black dress. Or “it’s Tuesday” because I was in purple dress.”

    Needed the laugh. Thanks!

    Reply

  20. Omg! Best story EVER! I agree with you–pantyhose must die! I used to get that from a woman I worked for about wearing heels (which I supposedly have to because I’m 5’0). I do.not.wear.heels. Because you know, it makes so much difference if I’m miserable and a wopping 5’2 as opposed to comfortable and 5’0.

    I just hope none of the tea protesters throw tea into actual bodies of water. In my area, the Jersey shore can’t take much more pollution..

    Reply

  22. That is hilarious! Are you going to share some pictures?!? It’s so funny that the kids knew what day it was in the slide show by your dress color. I am a teacher also, and it would be hilarious if someone around here did that just in spite of the VP dress suggestions!!

    Reply

  24. Peabody–

    You are too frickin cool. I am in love with this story and wish I had a comparable one. For some reason I can’t see your pictures, but the recipe *sounds* good at any rate. =)

    <3, Aleta.

    Reply

  25. Pea, I wear skirts on a daily basis – I work as an executive assistant – but only the ones I feel comfortable with and that don’t make my ass look three times bigger. On the weekends, though, it feels wonderful to go back to my jeans and Tees.

    These are wonderful treats – I love how beautifully golden the filling is! YUM!

    Reply

  26. That’s right! Drive people insane within the boundaries of law! That’s how I roll as well 🙂
    Thanks for the amusing post and the great recipe, the cream cheese sounds like a great addition here.

    Reply

  28. One of jobs was in a hotel (as a front desk girl). I HAD to wear a dress or skirt everyday. They said ‘a female in pants didn’t go with their image’. It was awful and to make matters worse we had to work on the bottom of a hill a HIKE up.

    I lasted 3 months. :/

    (Oh and that cream cheese dough sounds great)

    Reply

  29. Hahaha! that was a funny little story, and I enjoyed reading it! that VP really is unbearable and deserves a little lesson.
    those tarts look delightful! you could have bribed your VP with some of these to shut up. haha!

    Reply

  30. Great story, and these pies are super cute. Every time I try to make anything “mini” or “bite-size” though it seems to turn into a disaster. About the “tea” party, there was a HILARIOUS segment on the Rachel Maddow show that is being passed around online about it. It’s hard to get through it without laughing.

    Reply

  32. Do you know how much I love hot chocolate and pecan pie! Thanks for these amazing recipes! Your blog is so well done! I am envious of your pictures. I am for sure adding this blog to my links. Would you please add me to your Links page? I would so appreciate it as I aspire to have a blog as great as yours!

    Reply

  34. That is hilarious. They say that Einstein owned seven identical black suits and wore them every day because that way he could spend his time thinking about more important things!

    Reply

  35. My momma makes these every Christmas from a similar recipe. I’m not one to mess with a good thing, but I like the idea of adding a little bourbon to the crust, a little spice! Thanks for sharing!!

    Reply

  41. Pecan tasseies are one of my favorite things ever. These look amazing. PS, good luck to your Flames tonight. I am cheering for them…at least in this series 😉

    Reply

  43. I feel like it’s been about 1,000 years since I’ve been here! I’ve missed you!!!

    I’m watching the Flames and Blackhawks. Go Flames!!!

    Reply

  44. THAT is a hilarious story. Unfortunately, I’m the opposite of you…rule follower but can’t get away with anything! I got detention ONCE b/c the teacher had her panties in a wad that day…any other day people could probably fight in front of her and not get detention. Oh, well! Great pecan tassies.

    Reply

  45. Yikes! Sounds like someone else might have, er, not married a man? Kidding. That was a little obsessive on her part. Though I certainly don’t think your appearance should have suffered to make a point, lol 🙂 At least not with a muumuu lite!

    I’ve never had a pecan pie before– but these look so good, I think I need to change that stat!

    Reply

  46. That’s hilarious! You’ve got to share a pic of you in one of those dresses.

    Oh, and it seems to me that your VP had a little bit of a crush on you…! I’m just saying.

    Reply

  47. These little pies are beautiful…I wish I had one right now.

    I am cracking up about your 4 Costco dresses and boots. What did said dresses look like? ALso, I think your VP was a creepster. She wrote you notes about how good you looked in the first dress…? Seriously? So weird.

    Reply

  49. gee,
    I almost can’t believe that the VP actually did all of that. I mean, 20 years ago, sure, but I’ve not heard of that sort of archaic behaviour before. In Vancouver, if not in all of Canada, I can’t imagine that happening. Teachers come to school in birkenstocks, white socks and shorts in winter (so wrong in many ways) but no one utters a peep. Teachers in public schools wear what they pretty much want, just as they should. Those pecan tassies remind me so much of our Canadian Butter Tarts! yumm!

    Reply

  50. Great story and good point! Where can I find one of those dresses? your photos are so clear and real~ want to grab the little tassies and eat them!

    Reply

  51. OMG, I laughed so hard about your dress color messing the kids up for the rest of the week. You’ve got guts, babe. That is just too funny! And thanks for making the little pecan tassies. My butt can only handle one (or two???) 🙂

    Reply

  52. Great story! I can see you in the tent dress and Doc Martins! Just goes to show that the clothes do NOT make the woman, and to think that how you dressed was more important to her than how you taught!

    Reply

  53. Just wondered when you said ‘mini muffin tin’ what size do you mean? I only ask because in the UK sometimes things are said differently! (its hard translating everything from cups..)
    thanks

    Reply

  56. I adore pecan tassies! And I agree, great pecan pie has corn syrup in the filling. I usually make Natalie Dupree’s recipe for them, but I’m dying to try your cream cheese crust. Lovely!

    Reply

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