Chocolate Pecan Pie

This weeks baking adventure is a chocolaty twist on the old fashioned Thanksgiving favorite pecan pie.  Pies are not my forte, so I'm a little scared about how this is going to turn out.

Background:
My mom found this in a magazine (one of my favorite places to find recipes) a few years ago.  She's the one that always made this for Thanksgiving, so I thought I would give it a try this year with the prior knowledge that when I went to bake it last year with my Vietnamese friend I had problems.  But with a positive mindset, I thought I would give it another try.  Oh, and Nestle sponsored this recipe.  You can find this more Nestle favorites here.

Recipe:

1 unbaked 9-inch deep-dish pie shell
3 large eggs
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup pecan halves, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine eggs, corn syrup, sugar, butter, and vanilla extract in medium bowl with a wire whisk.  Stir in pecans.  Sprinkle chunks over bottom of crust.  Pour pecan mixture into pie shell.  Bake for 50-55 minutes or until knife inserted 2 inches from center comes out with little bits of filling attached.  If browning too quickly, cover with foil.  Cool on wire rack for 2 hours; refrigerate until serving time.

My notes:
When you use the pie shell, make sure you coat it with flour first.  The directions are on the side of the box.  Also, I changed the type of chocolate to dark chocolate chips to tone down the sweetness and to make me feel better about eating something with so much sugar.  Everyone knows dark chocolate is good for you.  Also, my mom always told me to wrap foil around the edges of the pie pan to cover the crust.  This helps to keep the crust from getting dark/burnt when the rest of the pie is still cooking.

How it turned out:
My crust looks great...I think.  Any crust experts out there?  The middle looks to be a few shades darker than golden brown (better than the plain dark brown of the center last time I made this).  The directions say to keep it in the oven until little pieces of filling come out with the knife.  That never happened to me.  After 10 extra minutes on top of the 55 the recipe called for, I took it out so it wouldn't get too dark. I even put foil on top of it at about the 55 mark to prevent the darkening.  This being said, I might have me a runny pecan pie. 

Sidenote: Dad just came in and said everything was going to be okay.  It will thicken up as it cools.  I'm feeling a little bit better about all this.  Maybe I should have just taken it out earlier if this is the case.

***Update.  The pie was good.  I received several complements.  It wasn't runny at all.  I think in the future I'll disregard the knife part of the instructions and just take it out at 55 minutes***

I know I promised you a picture.  I took pictures.  But this here computer doesn't have a place for me to put my camera card.  Can't win for losing, now can I?

As soon as Thanksgiving dinner is over, I'll give you an update on how it actually tastes.

Up next:
I'm back to cookie baking.  I've baked enough pies for a lifetime.  Grand total: 2.