If you’re making a pecan pie during the fruit’s harvesting season, it gives you an excuse to make a pie to warm up on those colder evenings, or you could be in the mood to prepare this dessert as it can be easy to make, add a topping, and serve as part of a dinner plan.
It’s not uncommon to have some leftovers, and you might be wondering how long this will last, however you decide to store it, as you want to remain fresh and retain a lot of the sweet flavors.
While this dessert can be frozen, cooled, or left on the counter, this might vary depending on what ingredients and spreads you use with your pie, but this doesn’t mean you have to alter your recipe.
We’ll provide all the storage information you’ll need, plus ways that you can make your pie even fresher, so serving it up at a later date can seem less daunting.
Read on to find out how you can get the best from your pecan pie recipe today.
What If I Store It In The Fridge?
The advice given is that you can store your baked or unbaked pie in the refrigerator for around 3-4 days, and if you happen to buy a store-bought pie, it might contain preservatives that might allow you to store it for a bit longer, but the 3-4 day rule is usually the best advice to follow.
If you bake your pecan pie, you should leave it to cool to room temperature, or if you have some leftover, you can apply a loose foil or wrap and keep it in the fridge.
This is especially important as you don’t want to squash any toppings you have on it, and you want it to keep its shape, which is why you shouldn’t wrap your baking dish too tightly.
What If I Don’t Have Any Room In My Fridge?
In general, you can leave it on the top for no more than 4 hours, as if your pie has either corn syrup, a gloss made of eggs and water, or a spread of half and half heavy whipping cream, you’ll need to put it in the fridge at some point to avoid it spoiling.
If you do decide to leave your pie out on the counter, be sure to keep it covered by a wrap or some type of lid that allows the pie to cool so that you can keep any unwanted flies away from your dessert.
If you know that your pie contains preservatives, you could leave it out longer, but this might only apply to the pie and not any cream or toppings you use, so be sure to check your ingredients and labels before leaving it out for too long.
What About Freezing It?
The best way to freeze your pecan pie is to bake it, leave it to settle, then you can leave it in your freezer until you want to use it again, and you can simply leave it to thaw inside your fridge and you can reheat your pie in an oven at 275 degrees Fahrenheit.
Be sure that your pie is cooked all the way through, as the longer you leave the pie in the freezer, the more affected the consistency and taste will be.
Leaving any toppings off will also be a good idea because freeing them can be a hassle to thaw out, so apply these once your pie is ready to be served, and you should be fine.
You can leave a pecan pie in the freezer for 1-3 months, but after the first month, you may notice you might lose some of the flavors, so be ready to use it a few weeks after you’ve put it in the freezer.
If you keep it wrapped, you can keep in the flavor and avoid distorting the shape of the pie, primarily to protect it from effects such as freezer burn.
How Can I Keep My Pecan Pie Fresher For Longer?
The first thing you can do is be aware of what desserts you have at any one time that are in your freezer, so you may want to mark the date on which you put the pie in the fridge, so you can get a good idea of what needs to be used, and keeps everything orderly.
If you apply the toppings as you’re serving it, you can avoid the pie becoming moist after absorbing the toppings liquid, and this gives you more options on what you can do with it in the future and keeps all those spices you might have used more potent.
If You decide to bake or not bake your pie, you can still freeze it, and as long as there’s nothing inside your freezer that can weigh too heavy on your pie, you shouldn’t have any issues.
If you find that your pie is still runny after baking it, you should bake it for longer, where it should bake at 60-70 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, then you should let it cool and set.
The Bottom Line
You can also store the pie in the fridge so that it’s sat further away from the door, and here is where the temperature will remain at a steady level, but you shouldn’t be too disappointed if your pie loses some of its crispiness on the crust and nuts.
You can return some of this crispiness by taking the pie or slice out of the fridge and reheating it.
Once it’s adjusted to room temperature, you can have a nice creamy and tasty pie. It might take some experimentation, but the result will be worth all the effort in the end.
Have you ever made something so delicious that you wished you could savor it forever?
Only to find that the recipe has now mysteriously vanished from your phone and the entirety of the internet. Yep, there’s not much more painful than that.
Hi, my name is Mark Williams and I have been infatuated with cooking since I was young. I would beg my mother to pull a chair up to the counter so I could watch what she was doing.
