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?
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Recipe
Eggless Pecan Bars Recipe
Ingredients
Ingredients For The Crust:
- 1 Cup Plus 2 Tablespoons (2 And ¼ Sticks) Unsalted Butter At Room Temperature
- ¾ Cup Light Brown Sugar Packed
- ½ Teaspoon Salt
- 3 Cups All Purpose Flour
Ingredients For The Filling:
- ½ Cup (1 Stick) Unsalted Butter
- ½ Cup Light Brown Sugar Packed
- ¼ Cup Plus 2 Tablespoons Honey
- 2 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar
- 2 Tablespoons Heavy Cream
- ¼ Teaspoon Salt
- 2 Cups Pecan Halves (I Used Chopped Pecans)
- ½ Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
Procedure To Make Crust:
- Preheat oven to 375F for 15 minutes.
- In a large mixing bowl put butter, brown sugar and cream it using an electric mixer in medium speed until light and fluffy.
- Mix in salt.
- Add flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing until fully incorporated after each addition.
- Continue mixing until dough begins to come together.
- Press dough about ¼ inch thick into a 9 by 13 inch baking pan. (See My Notes)
- Prick the dough with a fork.
- Chill until firm, about 20 minutes.
- Bake it golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Reduce oven to 325F.
Procedure To Make Filling:
- Place butter, brown sugar, honey, granulated sugar, heavy cream in a saucepan over high heat.
- Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until mixture coats the back of a spoon, about 1 minute.
- Remove pan from heat; stir in salt, nuts and vanilla.
- Pour filling into the cooled crust.
- Bake until filling bubbles, 15 to 20 minutes.
- Carefully transfer it to wire rack to cool completely.
- Run a paring knife around edges of the pan and invert onto cooling rack. (See My Notes)
- Invert again onto a cutting board.
- With a sharp knife cut into 1 by 3 inch bars.
My Notes
- Instead of using all butter, I used a combination of butter and Smart Balance 50/50 Unsalted Blend.
- 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.
- For making the crust, the dough has to be spread evenly in a 9x13 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.
- 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.
Laura Tsingos says
Wowza! Super yummy! Great recipe, thanks. One suggestion: don’t turn on oven until you put the crust in fridge (unless your oven takes a long time to preheat).
Madhuram says
Thanks, Laura. Yes, that's a cool tip of using the oven preheating time to cool the crust.
Melissa Damron says
I’ve made this several times and love it! I roll the dough to fit the size of the pan between two pieces of parchment paper. On a funny note, I don’t have a stand mixer.....and my hand mixer decided to bite the dust the last time I made this. Let’s just say the creaming part is not fun manually We are spoiled these days!
Madhuram says
That's true, Melissa. Thanks for trying the recipe.
Mary says
Would you have to make the crust? Could you put it in a pie crust?
Madhuram says
I'm not sure about how it will work in a pie crust, Mary.
DMG says
I made these because I had a ton of pecans, I didn't have eggs, and I wanted to make something for some friends that were coming over, and these were DELICIOUS. I did make a couple of changes, I didn't have honey so I used corn syrup, I actually doubled the amount of pecan topping, and I used almond milk instead of cream. These were perfect! Even if I have eggs, this will be my go-to recipe for pecan bars!
Madhuram says
Thank you very much for the feedback, DMG.
Scott says
Just made these with my wife who has an egg allergy! We love it! Not too much crust for us. Buttery and flaky delicious h a nice chew from the filling. We did butter the baking dish before putting in the dough and it popped out with ease and I think even enhanced the dough even more. Thanks for the recipe!
Madhuram says
That's great, Scott. Thank you very much for the feedback.
Geneva says
Can I make this with something other than heavy cream, I can't have dairy. Thank you for the recipe it looks wonderful.
Madhuram says
It's just 2 tablespoons so it shouldn't be a big deal if you omit it. Try non-dairy milk or coconut cream if you like the flavor and taste.
ren says
So happy that I found your site. Made your oatmeal raisin cookies with the flax seed egg yesterday which came out great. Will try these bars for our inauguration day party. My son has become vegan and I'm learning to cook and bake for him. Thank you Madhuram!
Madhuram says
You're very welcome Ren. All the best! 🙂
Priti says
I made this today for my egg allergic daughter. It came out really good. I followed the tip given by one of the reviewer and cut down the crust recipe into half with the same filling recipe and baked in 8/8 size pan. It came out perfect this way or else it would have been too much of crust. Thank you for the recipe! Will definitely make it again.
Radha says
Looks delicious. Seems you need to be an experienced baker to make these!
Madhuram says
Not necessarily Radha. This was one of my very first recipe...like I made it within 3-4 months of starting to bake.
Debbie Young says
Use parchment paper in your 13X9 pan and your cookies with lift right out to cooling rack!!!
Madhuram says
Yes..that's a good idea. I was not aware of it then. Those were my initial days of baking.
Nina says
Tasted great, but in my opinion there was too much crust not enough filling. I wound up doubling the filing recipe. Really good though!
sarah says
Have you ever thought about using powdered sugar in addition to the flour to make the crust it seems like this would help since your pressing it into the pan. I know I have a cookbook that uses powdered sugar to make a crust for lemongrass
Madhuram says
Oh! it's new information to me Sarah. Thanks.
Whitney says
These were Fantastic!! Thank you for all your recipe ideas.
Madhuram says
You're welcome Whitney.
Savithri says
Thanks for sharing the great recipe. I tried making it and it was a total hit!
You're welcome Savithri.