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to stick to recipes over the holidays that I could safely post on the blog a month or two later, and they wouldn’t be outdated or unsuitable for the season, but you may have to bear with me when I share a few of those recipes — like Spicedoodles and winter mint M&M chocolate cookies,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
Directions