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Eggless Pecan Bars

Madhuram — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:59:12 +0000

We had been to New York last month and happened to taste a wonderful pecan bar. Ever since I have been searching for a good recipe to bake it myself, but all I found had eggs in it. Yesterday I went to the library and I found a recipe for eggless pecan bars in Martha Stewart’s Cookies book. The recipe is from John Barricelli, Martha’s longtime friend and she herself tells that she has tried lots of pecan bars over the years, but John’s are the absolute best. So how can I not try it, when it is eggless too?

IngredientsFor the crust:

Unsalted Butter, at room temperature – 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 and 1/4 sticks)

Light Brown Sugar, packed – 3/4 cup

Salt – 1/2 teaspoon

All Purpose Flour – 3 cups

For the Filling:

Unsalted Butter – 1/2 cup (1 stick)

Light Brown Sugar, packed – 1/2 cup

Honey – 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons

Granulated Sugar – 2 tablespoons

Heavy Cream – 2 tablespoons

Salt – 1/4 teaspoon

Pecan Halves – 2 cups (I used chopped pecans)

Vanilla Extract – 1/2 teaspoon

Yield: 3 Dozen

To Make Crust

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1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. In a large mixing bowl put butter, brown sugar and cream it using an electric mixer in medium speed until light and fluffy.
3. Mix in salt.

4. Add flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing until fully incorporated after each addition.
5. Continue mixing until dough begins to come together.
6. Press dough about 1/4 inch thick into a 9 by 13 inch baking pan. (See my notes)

7. Prick the dough with a fork.
8. Chill until firm, about 20 minutes.
9. Bake it golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes.
10. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
11. Reduce oven to 325F.

To Make Filling

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1. Place butter, brown sugar, honey, granulated sugar, heavy cream in a saucepan over high heat.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until mixture coats the back of a spoon, about 1 minute.
3. Remove pan from heat; stir in salt, nuts and vanilla.
4. Pour filling into the cooled crust.
5. Bake until filling bubbles, 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Carefully transfer it to wire rack to cool completely.
7. Run a paring knife around edges of the pan and invert onto cooling rack. (See My Notes)
8. Invert again onto a cutting board.
9. With a sharp knife cut into 1 by 3 inch bars.

My Notes1. Instead of using all butter, I used a combination of butter and Smart Balance 50/50 Unsalted Blend.

2. In the original recipe, stand mixer was used to prepare the dough for the crust. Since I don’t have one I used a hand held mixer. It’s a bit difficult if you are doing it alone because, you have to cream the mixture, simultaneously scrape the edges and also add 1 cup of flour at a time. I was able to do it with the help of my mother and my husband. So be sure to catch hold of your husband while preparing these bars. If you are going to use a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment in medium speed.

3. For making the crust, the dough has to be spread evenly in a 9×13 inch pan. This was a little bit tricky. So my husband gave a wonderful idea to do the job neatly. After spreading the dough with a rubber spatula, he asked me to cut a wax paper to the size of the pan and lay it over the dough and then smooth it with my hands. Then my mother gave the idea of using a small vessel on top of the paper to get a smooth finish. Both the ideas worked out very well.

4. I was not able to invert the bar on the cooling rack because it was sticking to the pan. So I cut them into small bars in the pan itself and removed it using a spatula.

Bars can be stored in an air tight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

Eggless Banana Ice Cream

Madhuram — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:58:46 +0000

I had 4 very ripe bananas at home. Usually I make carrot cake with it, but this time I wanted to try something new. Then only I remembered watching an episode of Good Eats in Food TV, where Alton Brown prepared banana ice cream without eggs. So immediately went to the site to get the recipe. Interestingly I had all the ingredients at hand. But the only thing was the bananas had to be frozen overnight and thawed, before making the ice cream. I have wanted to try this for a long time now, so did not have the patience to do it the next day and also the bananas were very ripe. So proceeded to make the ice cream and it did come out very well. Maybe I’ll try the freezing method next time. So check here for the original recipe.

Ingredients:
Bananas – 4
Lemon Juice – little (may be a teaspoon)
Light corn syrup – 1/2 cup
Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon
Heavy cream – 1 cup

Procedure:
1. Peel the bananas and place it in a blender.

2. Blend it alongwith the lemon juice.

3. Add corn syrup and vanilla essence and blend it once again.

4. Add the cream and blend it until smooth.

5. Transfer the mixture to a container and chill it in the refrigerator until it reaches 40 degrees. (I forgot this step)

If you don’t have an ice cream maker: (check here for detailed instructions)
6. Even before starting the process of making the ice cream, put a stainless steel container or any other freezer safe container in the freezer until the ice cream mixture is ready.

7. Once the mixture is ready transfer it to the freezed container and close it with a lid.

8. After 45 minutes, open the door and check it. As it starts to freeze near the edges beat it up either using a spatula, whisk or stick blender to break any frozen sections. Return to freezer.

9. Keep checking it periodically and stirring while it freezes until the ice cream is frozen. It will take 2-3 hours to be ready.

10. I started making the ice cream very late in the evening, so I was able to do the above process only twice. I had to put the ice cream in the freezer overnight. The next day evening when I checked the ice cream had frozen rock hard and I was not able to scoop it. So I transferred the container from the freezer to the refrigerator. After about 45 minutes I was able to get the perfect scoop of delicious homemade ice cream.

First scoop of homemade ice cream.

I also added some chocolate chips to the ice cream mixture. The ice cream was so DELICIOUS!!!

If you have an ice cream maker:
1. Chill mixture in refrigerator until it reaches 40 degrees.
2. Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and process according to manufacture’s instructions.
3. Place mixture in an airtight container and freeze it for 3 to 6 hours before serving.

Update: A small note to both banana lovers and haters, try this ice cream with just one banana first. The original recipe calls for 6 bananas, but I have used only 4 bananas, even then the flavor of banana is overpowering. The ice cream got mixed reviews. But the happy news is my toddler liked it very much.

JZ of Tasty Treats has passed me the “Blogging with a Purpose” award. Thank you very much JZ.

I would like to pass this to
Vaishali
Libby
Zlamushka

I’m sending this to Mike’s “You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Frozen Desserts!” event.