Showing posts with label pecans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pecans. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Marshmallow Turtle Bars #FoodieExtravaganza

Caramel, chocolate and pecans are the key ingredients of those delicious little candies known as turtles. Add a crust and throw a few mini marshmallows in the mix and what you’ve got is marshmallow turtle bars. They are sticky, gooey and more-ish!



This month my Foodie Extravaganza group is bringing you loads of chocolate recipes, both sweet and savory, in celebration of National Chocolate Day at the end of October. I’m not a big sweet eater but I am fond of chocolate when it is either dark, semi-sweet or paired with caramel. A dark or semi-sweet chocolate caramel combination would be ideal, especially with pecans. Which brings us to my recipe.

These guys are sooooo good.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g flour
1/2 cup or 63g confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup or 85g unsalted butter, chilled
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 14-ounce or 397g can sweetened condensed milk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup or 115g pecans, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup or 150g semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup or 165g toffee-and-chocolate candy (such as chopped up Heath bars)
1 cup or 50g mini marshmallows

Method
Heat oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 9 x 13 inch or 23 x 33cm pan by greasing it or lining it with baking parchment. Personally, I'm a fan of the parchment.

Cut the chilled butter into cubes and put it in a food processor with the flour, confectioners' sugar, and salt. Pulse until the dough just starts to hang together.


Use your clean hands to press the dough firmly into your prepared pan.



Bake until golden around the edges, about 12-15 minutes.


In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the condensed milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour the filling over the baked crust.

Sprinkle on the marshmallows first, then the chopped pecans, chocolate chips, and toffee pieces putting some of each until you’ve used up all of them.



Bake until the filling is set, the edges are golden brown, and the marshmallows are melted, about 25 minutes.



Cool completely and cut into bars. If you live in a warm climate, you might want to keep these in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

How will you celebrate National Chocolate Day? I’d like to recommend making a few of these. Many thanks to our host this month, Kathleen from Fearlessly Creative Mammas.


Foodie Extravaganza celebrates obscure food holidays or shares recipes with the same ingredient or theme every month.

Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook group Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you!

If you're a reader looking for delicious recipes, check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board! Looking for our previous parties? Check them out here.

Pin it! 

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Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Pecan Sandies #CreativeCookieExchange

Buttery and rich with a delicious crunch of toasted pecans, these pecan sandies almost melt in your mouth as they leave a trail of sandy crumbs down your chin.

Buttery and rich with a delicious crunch of toasted pecans, these pecan sandies almost melt in your mouth as they leave a trail of sandy crumbs down your chin.

I have a notebook that I keep nearby at all times where I keep track of my upcoming obligations for different blogger group posts. I try very hard to write all the themes in it next to the publish date. Occasionally, if the theme is too long, I’ll shorten it so it fits but so I can still remember the whole thing. Or so I thought. This month’s whole theme for Creative Cookie Exchange is Cookies to Celebrate the End of Summer Vacation. That does not fit in my editorial calendar notebook. So I wrote, End of Summer.

End of summer, end of summer, I thought weeks later as I checked the notebook, the deadline looming. I’m such a Beach Boys fan that Endless Summer naturally popped into my mind. Hmmmm, interesting. And what goes with the Beach Boys but beaches? Now you see how I ended up making pecan sandies, right?

Pecan sandies are classic buttery cookies that are sometimes coated in or sprinkled with powdered sugar after they are baked. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t need the extra sugar at all and, for my purposes this month, the snow white shower would take away from their sandy color.

Going the other direction, I chose to sprinkle mine with the leftover crumbs of the toasted pecans for added color. But you do you, honey boo-boo.

Ingredients
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup or 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup or 100g granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons water
1 1/4 cups chopped pecans (about 5 ozs or 142g)
Optional: powdered sugar to decorate

Method
Toast your pecan pieces in a dry skillet on the stovetop. Stir or toss often so they don’t scorch but become a lovely toasted color all over. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Preheat your oven to 325°F or 163°C and line two cookie sheets with parchment or silicone baking liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together your flour, salt and baking soda.

Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with electric beaters or your stand mixer until they are a pale yellow and fluffy – about three minutes. Scrape down the sides of your bowl with a rubber spatula.

Beat in the egg, vanilla and water until fully incorporated. Do not be alarmed when these look curdled. Adding the flour always takes care of that.





Scrape down the sides of the bowl again and continue beating, adding about a third of the flour at a time and beating until fully mixed and all the flour has been added.



Use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooled toasted pecan pieces into the mixing bowl, leaving behind the smaller crumbs of pecan.

Mix until the pecans are incorporated into the dough.



Use a tablespoon or cookie scoop to measure out the cookie dough into about 25-27 cookies. I separated them nicely in the first baking pan but discovered when they came out that they can be much closer together. They don't spread much.



Roll the dough into balls with your hands and then flatten them with the bottom of a glass.



Check the crumbs left behind in the pecan toasting pan to make sure that none of them are little pieces of pecan shell. This can happen in the shelling process with disastrous results when someone bites on shell.

Sprinkle the pecan crumbs on top of the cookies and press down again lightly to make them stick into the dough. This, as you can see, is pan two.


Bake each pan for about 10 minutes then rotate it to make sure the cookies bake evenly. Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the pecan sandies are slightly brown around the edges. If you bake both pans at once, you might want to rotate them from top shelf to bottom shelf as well as front to back.

Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool.



Enjoy!



How do you celebrate the end of summer? Might I suggest baking some cookies?


Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life. We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Pin Pecan Sandies!


Buttery and rich with a delicious crunch of toasted pecans, these pecan sandies almost melt in your mouth as they leave a trail of sandy crumbs down your chin.

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Posted by at 3:23:00 AM 0 comments
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Saturday, December 12, 2015

Chocolate Praline Pretzels

The perfect mix of sweet and salty, these chocolate-covered pretzels are dipped in crunchy pecan praline. They make a great hostess gift or holiday party treat.


I am not a big sweet eater but the exception is any treat that mixes salty with sweet, like salted caramel or, indeed, these easy-to-make pretzels. You can use pretzel sticks or traditionally shaped ones, whatever you have on hand.

Chocolate Praline Pretzels

These are adapted from My Recipes. The original recipe makes only 16. I completely forgot to count how many this makes but it's a bunch. As you might guess from the ingredients list below, at least 55. Cue up a Christmas movie to watch while making them.

Ingredients
Butter for greasing pan
1 1/2 cups or 165g chopped pecans
1/4 cup, firmly packed, or 50g light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons heavy cream
7 oz or 200g semisweet chocolate bars (I used two Lindt bars.)
Butter for greasing baking pan
55-65 pretzel sticks

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and butter a 9 in or 23cm round cake pan.

Stir together your chopped pecans, brown sugar, salt and cream. Spread the mixture out evenly in the pan.



Bake for 10 minutes then take the pan out and stir the mixture.

Spread it out again and bake an addition 10-15 minutes or until sugar is slightly crystallized.

Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn the praline out onto a cutting board. Allow to cool completely and then chop finely with a sharp knife.



Spread the praline bits out on waxed paper or baking parchment.

Place your chocolate in a microwave-safe measuring cup and microwave on high for 15 seconds at a time, stirring well in between time, until just melted. You don’t want the chocolate super hot or it will be too runny.

Dip your pretzels in the chocolate.


Then lay them on the praline bits.


Cover with more praline bits.

See the pretzel sticking out? The chocolate part should be completely covered.


Wait about 10-15 seconds till the praline bits are stuck on, tapping down gently on the pile.

Remove the covered pretzels to a lined tray to harden up. You may find as you go on that the smaller bits of praline stick first so you are left with bigger pieces in your pile. Use a knife to chop them more finely, if necessary.

The work station. Not pictured: A Charlie Brown Christmas showing on my laptop.
This job takes a while but requires little brain. 

Continue until you run out of praline bits or chocolate or pretzels. I ran out of praline bits first this time, and made more than 5 dozen chocolate praline pretzels.

The pile gets tiny. 


Now box these babies up and share them with a neighbor or friend!



Enjoy!

 Christmas Week recipes! Please visit all our talented participants:



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Monday, December 7, 2015

Coconut Pralines

Take a sweet pecan praline and add some coconut for a delicious candy that is easy to make and perfect for wrapping up to bring along to your holiday parties. If you can bear to share them.



I am not a big sweet eater but anything caramel or praline is one of my big exceptions. (Also sweet and salty together!) These things are easy to make and even easier to eat. Make a batch and see if you don't agree with me!

Coconut Pralines

When I was a child, my grandmother made fudge and other candies to give away at Christmas time. I don't specifically remember her making pralines, but since we were in southern Louisiana, it's quite likely. I think she would like my coconut version.

Ingredients- For about 3 dozen pralines
2 1/2 cups or 500g sugar
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml corn syrup
1/2 cup or 113g butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups or 270g chopped pecans
2 cups or 175g sweetened shredded coconut

Method
In a bowl, combine coconut and pecans; set aside. Line a pan with nonstick aluminum foil, wax paper or a silicone liner.

Put your sugar, milk, corn syrup, butter and salt in a medium-sized pot and stir well to combine.

Cook over a medium-high heat and continue stirring until the mixture comes to a full rolling boil.



Let it boil while stirring for 5 minutes. If you want to use a candy thermometer, you are looking for the mixture to reach almost 230°F or 110°C.

Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, then tip in the coconut/pecan mixture and stir well until everything is coated with the syrup.



Drop the mixture by large spoonfuls on your lined pan.



Leave to cool until the pralines harden completely.  This could take several hours or even overnight, depending on the temperature of your home.



Enjoy!






Recipes from Christmas Week Bloggers



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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Party Pecan Pie

A sticky, sweet pecan pie in a flakey crust, sized perfectly for parties. There can never be enough pecan pie when you are feeding a crowd. This guy is perfect for Mardi Gras parties, showers, tailgating and especially Thanksgiving or Christmas buffets.

Today we are celebrating Lauren from Sew You Think You Can Cook who is expecting her second baby very soon by sharing recipes that are great for family occasions. Lauren is a sweetheart so even though it meant double posting today, I had to join the party, ably organized by Tara of Tara’s Multicultural Table.

I’ve made this large pie several times over the last few years, mostly to take to Mardi Gras parties, but it works for any event and recently made the traveling team for my dad’s 80th birthday party as a road trip/hotel snack. Because that’s how we roll in my family.

Make sure you scroll on down to the bottom and see all the other great recipes we are sharing in Lauren's honor today!.

Ingredients
For the crust:
3 1/2 cups or 440g flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup or 300g shortening (I use Crisco.)
Cold water (Added by tablespoons just till the dough just holds together. Maybe 8-10, but use as little as you can get away with. This makes a flakier crust.)

For the filling
1 lb 5 oz or 600g pecan pieces
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups or 250g sugar
2 1/4 cups or 530ml Karo or other light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter in small pats

Method
Cut the shortening into the flour and salt with a pastry blender until you have small crumbles.



Add the cold water a tablespoon or two at a time and mix in lightly with a fork after each addition. Stop when the dough will just hang together.


Flatten the dough ball and wrap tightly in cling film. Refrigerate for at least half an hour.

Preheat your oven to 300°F or 149°C and cut a piece of foil that will fit an approximately 12x16 in or 30x41cm pan, including covering up the sides.

Roll your dough out as thinly as possible on the foil, leaving just a little space around the edges. If it's sticky, lay a big piece of cling film on top or dust with some more flour.



Fit the dough-covered foil into the pan.  Roll the tops of the dough down and crimp to create a decorative edge.



Dock the sides and bottom of the crust with a fork.



In a large bowl, whisk your eggs and sugar together well until the sugar is almost all dissolved. Add the Karo and salt and whisk again until completely combined.



Add in the pecans and stir well.



Pour your filling in the pie crust and top with small pieces of butter.



Bake for about 50-60 minutes in your preheated oven, until the pie is just set.

Allow to cool completely before attempting to cut the pie into squares. Store in an airtight container with each layer separated by wax paper or baking parchment.



Enjoy!




Here’s wishing much joy to Lauren and her expanding family! We hope you enjoy all of the special recipes we are sharing in your honor today, Lauren!


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