- [John] Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen
we're making some pecan pie bars
that are simply amazing.
So let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350,
and while it warms up,
you might as well add in two cups of pecans
onto a baking sheet.
We're gonna give these a rough chop later,
but they're gonna be so much more delicious
if they're lightly toasted.
So, about 10 minutes in the oven
you can give them a mix halfway through.
The base of our pecan pie bars
is an amazing shortbread.
It's so easy to make,
but you do need to melt 12 tablespoons of butter.
The base of our pecan pie bars
comes from a crisp and buttery shortbread crust.
To make that crisp, buttery crust,
you want 12 tablespoons of butter
that we're gonna melt up.
Pop that into the microwave,
40 seconds at 50% power,
and then ten second bursts after that
until it's nice and melted.
I like to cover this with the butter paper,
so any butter explosion that happens
is less explodey.
Into a large bowl,
it's over a scale.
I'm adding 2 1/2 cups, or 300 grams
of all-purpose flour.
Shortbread is so easy to make,
and it's a delicious base
for all kinds of amazing desserts.
Pecan pie is so good,
but it can be very sweet,
like so sweet.
You have like one bite and say,
oh my gosh, it's delicious.
But then you can't eat anymore because it's so rich.
These pecan pie bars are solving this,
and by the way this is powdered sugar,
2/3 of a cup, 66 grams.
This recipe solves that problem
by giving you just the right proportion
of pecans, pecan pie filling, and that shortbread crust,
and the shortbread is not too sweet at all.
These have very little sugar in there.
Half a teaspoon of salt to give you some balance.
Little salty, sweet situation.
Now we're gonna grab a whisk,
say goodbye to our scale
and give it a good mix.
Just distribute all that salt and powdered sugar.
And this recipe, by the way, is so easy.
Kids will love helping you make it.
They can actually make it on their own.
And it's not like a pie,
where you have to really supervise
and like worry about the steps being just right.
My butter is nice and melty, no explosions.
I'm gonna add all of that into my flour.
Now grab a fork, and we're gonna stir this together
until it's a nice like wet, crumbly mixture.
This recipe is so delicious,
and I really wish more people knew about it,
which might just be why I'm making it on the channel.
Hint hint.
So you can see this comes together really easily.
Just mash any bits of stray flour right into the butter.
Yeah, if it's forming one giant lump,
just kind of break it apart with your fork.
This looks great.
It's ready to go into our prepared 9 by 13 inch dish,
which I didn't prepare yet.
You wanna grab some parchment paper,
and the key is for this to come out easily.
It can stick because that pecan pie filling is sticky.
So parchment paper will fix everything.
I'm just gonna center it up,
and give it four snips.
If you're wondering why this is called shortbread,
short describes the texture.
It's buttery and crisp, not chewy.
And bread, because the Scottish bakers who invented this
wanted to avoid paying an English tax on cookies,
AKA biscuits.
So they named this a bread, which was not taxed.
Smart, but I never would've guessed in a million years
that's why it was called that.
Dump all of your shortbread out here.
We want one nice, packed, smooth, even layer.
If you have any large lumps
just break them up and sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle.
Now we're gonna pat this into an even layer
that's nice and smooth,
and also pressed together.
The shortbread needs some pressure
so it's all compacted into a layer that doesn't fall apart.
If you're having kids help you make this
wash those hands so thoroughly.
A little tip for getting a smooth edge
is to run a fork right along the bottom.
It'll smooth everything out and give you a nice even layer.
This is ready to go into the oven.
350 for about 20 minutes,
or until the edges are just taking on
some beautiful golden color.
In the meantime, we'll make our filling.
My pecans came out of the oven a few minutes ago,
and now they're just warm and not screaming hot.
You can see they took on a beautiful color.
And I wanna point out, in case you don't know.
toasting your nuts is so important, especially for pecans.
It adds a wonderful depth of flavor
and they even look prettier too.
Giving this a really rough chop.
I don't want to have like whole pecans here,
I also don't wanna have tiny little pieces.
I want like a nice, nice size chop.
Think chocolate chip size.
Chop, chop, chop.
These can get set aside right now.
Oh, I am so proud of myself for not spilling.
That normally ends in disaster for some reason.
Now we're gonna grab a big bowl
and make that amazing, gooey, delicious filling.
This filling is so easy to make.
And here's the deal.
You want one and a half cups of something.
What is that something?
Well, you have a couple choices.
This could be dark corn syrup.
it could be Lyle's golden syrup.
You can get both those at the market, by the way.
Or if you're feeling extra special,
you could use maple syrup for this too.
They're all delicious
and you can even use a combination of those three.
Basically you want like a nice, rich, inverted sugar
which is what all three of these are.
The one that tastes the best is of course, maple syrup.
Golden syrup and dark corn syrup,
they're both gonna be pretty similar.
And I'll point out this is not high fructose corn syrup,
which is like super sweet.
It's regular corn syrup
which is like somewhat sweet.
For balance, I'm adding one stingy teaspoon of salt.
If you're using a fine grain salt, an iodized salt, or both,
I would use half a teaspoon or three quarters.
They're extra salty.
I also want four large room temperature eggs.
Crack those right in.
If you're worried about shells,
crack 'em into a separate bowl.
So we're basically making a really easy, like,
sugar custard base
that's gonna cook up and be just the right consistency
filled with crunchy, amazing pecans
over that buttery shortbread crust.
I'm gonna add a tablespoon of vanilla,
and it's gonna give me a wonderful depth of flavor,
but you don't have to use vanilla.
You could use bourbon instead, or a nice rum.
Those are also gonna give you wonderful flavors
and the alcohol will burn off.
Vanilla mind you, is vodka.
It's vodka or bourbon
infused with a ton of vanilla flavor.
I don't think a lot of people realize
that if you're using vanilla, you're using alcohol.
So, if you wanna avoid that, you could use like,
maybe two teaspoons of vanilla bean paste.
It'll give you the vanilla flavor
but it's not made with alcohol.
I'm also adding in two thirds of a cup, or 140 grams
of brown sugar.
You could choose light or dark.
Okay, we're gonna mix this in.
And FYI, it's not gonna be sweet
if you don't add the sugar in.
I may have made a batch
and forgotten to add the sugar in.
We'll never know.
Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't.
Whisk it up until it's nice and smooth.
You can see it has a beautiful color now.
My gosh.
So nice.
And we're gonna add flour to help stabilize this,
but I don't wanna add the flour in right now
while I'm whisking away,
because that could activate the gluten in the flour
and just make my consistency a little bit less wonderful.
Just really get the bottom of that bowl,
and make sure there's no clumps of eggs, or salt,
or anything lingering around.
I have 40 grams, or a third of a cup of all purpose flour.
I'm gonna sift it in while I mix
just until the flour is combined.
No over mixing for us.
It looks really pretty, too.
My crust is out of the oven
and screeching hot
so carefully putting it on a trivet.
I have one last step for the filling
and that's to add my pecans.
So just pour those in.
Ooh, give them a nice mix.
Ooh, look how good that looks.
Delicious.
Any finishing touches you want to add are fine.
And now we're gonna pour this right over
our warm shortbread crust.
You'll probably end up with some piles of pecans.
Just smooth those out so everyone gets an equal number
of delicious pecans in every bite.
This is ready to go
into the oven, 350 for about 30 minutes.
You want the center to be just set.
It'll finish firming up as it cools
and you don't wanna over bake them.
That would be sad.
In you go.
My pecan pie bars are out of the oven.
You need to them cool,
and if you want a perfect, beautiful cut
you can chill them.
If you don't care about them,
and you want them ooey gooey, amazing,
you get them slightly warm.
Ah, if you want a nice clean cut,
go ahead and score the top with a serrated knife,
and then give it a nice chop.
Look at that filling.
Oh my gosh, it is gooey and amazing.
I've been looking so forward to this.
Crunchy on top,
crisp and buttery underneath,
in gooey and amazing on the inside.
These are a must make recipe.
I could eat these all day long and I will.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video, check out my fall playlist.