Pastry Braid with Maple Pecan

Share:
braid pastry with maple pecan

Light, crispy pastry braid parcels filled with a gooey maple pecan pie filling. Perfect for your afternoon coffee!

Ingredients

For the Pastries

  • 2 TBSP corn starch
  • 2 TBSP plant milk
  • 100g dark brown sugar
  • 80g vegan butter
  • 3 TBSP maple syrup
  • ⅛ tsp cinnamon
  • 45g finely chopped pecans
  • Pinch flaky sea salt
  • 1 large 550g roll of puff pastry

For Topping

  • 3 TBSP plant milk
  • 2 tsp maple/agave syrup
  • 30g pecans, roughly broken

Instructions

To Make the Pastries

  1. If using refrigerated pastry dough, remove it from the fridge and place it somewhere at room temperature. Line a large baking tray with greaseproof paper.
  2. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and plant milk. Set aside.
  3. Place the sugar, vegan butter, maple syrup, cinnamon, and chopped pecans in a small saucepan and place over low heat. Stirring constantly, allow everything to melt together into a smooth caramel.
  4. Once the mixture starts to bubble and begins to raise up the side of the pan, add the cornflour mixture and stir well.
  5. Allow to bubble, stirring constantly, for a further minute or so. Remove from the heat and stir in the pinch of flaky sea salt.
  6. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl and set aside until fully cooled. Preheat the oven to 200c/390f fan.
  7. Once the filling is fully cooled, unroll the pastry carefully, keeping it on top of the provided sheet of greaseproof paper.
  8. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, divide the pastry sheet into 8 equal rectangles. On each rectangle, use a chopstick to gently mark out two lines down the central two-thirds of the pastry.
  9. Using a sharp knife and working with one rectangle of pastry at a time, slice the outer third on both sides into 8 pieces to create a fringe on each side of the pastry. Repeat on all remaining pastry.
  10. Place a heaped tablespoon of the cooled mixture in the central third of each pastry rectangle. Braid the fringe pieces of pastry over the filling moving from left to right. Seal the loose ends as best you can and transfer the pastries to the lined baking tray.

To Top the Pastries

  1. In a measuring jug or small bowl, mix together the plant milk and maple/agave syrup. Use a pastry brush to wash each pastry with the mixture before sprinkling with the broken pecans.
  2. Place the pastries in the oven and leave to bake for 20-25 minutes. Watch them carefully for the last 5 minutes as the pecans can burn easily.
  3. Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack. Allow the pastries to cool completely before serving.
Print

Start with the filling. This is essentially just like making pecan pie filling. You want to make a simple brown sugar caramel first by melting the butter and sugar together along with the pecans. Then you’ll add some plant milk mixed with corn starch to help thicken everything up!

maple pecan pastry ingredients
pecan maple filling for braids
filling for vegan pastries
mixed ingredients for maple filling

We’re using store-bought, pre-rolled pastry here (always make sure the variety you’re using doesn’t contain butter). Get an extra-large one if you can! Unroll it and divide it into 8 rectangles.

pastry squares

Without cutting the dough, divide each rectangle into thirds. I like to just make two gentle vertical indentations with a chopstick. Then, you want to make sure the two sides of the rectangle are sliced into 8 roughly even-sized notches.

braid pastry dough

Spread some of your cooled fillings in the center third of the pastry and fold down the top two notches like below. I like to pinch them closed at the top to minimize leakage.

Repeat the folds with the bottom two notches and pinch shut there also.

pecan braid dough folding

Work your way up the pastry, alternating left notch over right notch until you’ve completely covered the filling.

braid pastry dough folded

Finally, brush the pastries with a little vegan “egg” wash and sprinkle with broken pecans.

pecan maple topping

Bake for around 20 minutes at 200c or until everything is looking puffed and golden brown! Expect some leakage from these guys! It’s impossible to perfectly seal them but that’s ok! They’ll be delicious regardless. Allow them to cool completely before serving. They’ll taste MUCH better that way I promise!

pecan-maple-pastries0790

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @wickedkitchenfood on Instagram and hashtag it #wickedkitchen.

Want more inspiration? Subscribed to The Wicked Kitchen YouTube Channel!

Other delicious recipes:

Search our Recipes