Salted Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie Bars
Happy New Year, friends! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season full of family, friends, and food. As evidenced by my apparent disappearance from this blog, I was a busy bee for much of December, and it’s only now that I’m back to work and falling back into a routine that it seems like there is time to get back to the business of “normal” life. At the present moment, I’ve got eight blog posts waiting to be written and published — a backlog unlike I’ve ever had — but I haven’t felt compelled to put fingers to keypad lately. It’s just one of those blogger life seasons, I guess, where the words don’t come as easily, and life seems to speed by with other priorities taking the lead.
I have been baking up a storm though — some amazing, incredible things, all of which I’ll share in good time. I tried to stick to recipes over the holidays that I could safely post on the blog a month or two later, and they wouldn’t be outdated or unsuitable for the season, but you may have to bear with me when I share a few of those recipes — like Spicedoodles and winter mint M&M chocolate cookies, and maybe stow them in the back of your mind for next year. Trust me, they’re worth waiting for!
Today, I’ve got a recipe that I served as Thanksgiving dessert. Yup. I’m that far behind. I told you!!! But these pie bars are so good it doesn’t really matter the season — you can make them anytime a craving strikes. I love eating pie, but I’m not a frequent pie maker myself, so when Thanksgiving rolled around I decided to find a festive recipe that I could make it bar form — my very favorite. These Salted Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars totally fit the bill.
I’ll say right off the bat that you have to love chocolate for these bars to be up your alley — they’re arguably more chocolate than pecan pie, but that’s precisely why I loved them. I also used bittersweet chocolate so it added a really nice bite in contrast to the sweet pecan pie filling, but you could certainly use something a little less bitter.
The crust is a crunchy shortbread, which plays nicely with the other textures going on here, which are plentiful. The sprinkle of sea salt on top is quite literally just the icing on the proverbial cake — it brings everything together, but doesn’t overwhelm the wonderful caramelized, chocolatey, rich, and festive flavors going on.
Good stuff right here.
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 3/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons bourbon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
- 2 cups unsalted pecans, coarsely chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon flaked sea salt
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13 baking dish with foil or parchment paper and coat with nonstick spray.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar, both flours and salt together, on low speed to start, increasing to medium. You want the mixture to resemble coarse crumbs, so that all of the ingredients are adequately incorporated. Dump the dough into your prepared baking dish and press evenly into the bottom of your pan. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until the dough is just slightly browned. Let it cool for 10 to 15 minutes while you prepare the filling.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, corn syrup, and sugar until smooth. Add the bourbon and vanilla extract and whisk to combine. With a spatula, fold in the chocolate and pecans.
- Pour the filling over top of your pre-baked crust, and return to the oven to bake for 30 to 40 minutes more, until the center of your bars is set. (I started checking at 25 minutes just to be sure.) Remove from the oven, and sprinkle with sea salt. Let cool completely in their pain before slicing and serving.
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