Pecan Brownies

Needed to make something for a Bake Stall, so decided something with chocolate, as they're always popular. My friend had been raving about these brownies, so I persuaded her to part with the recipe! Have to admit that I'm not a great brownie fan. I think it's because I've eaten a lot of overcooked ones which were disappointing. There's a fine line between their being squidgy and overcooked - as I know too well! I made a recipe not long ago that was so awful even the birds wouldn't eat it! What a waste of chocolate!



180g 70% dark chocolate
175g butter
150g light brown sugar
3 eggs and 1 yolk
85g plain flour and 1 level tspn of baking powder
100g pecans - keep 25g for the topping



Preheat oven 180C/gas4/fan165C


Grease a 18x32cm tin
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Break the pecans into pieces.
In a bowl beat the eggs and yolk lightly with a fork.
Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl over simmering water. Take off heat when melted.
Add the sugar and mix together.
Add the eggs a bit at a time, mixing well.
Add the flour and baking powder, and the broken 75g of pecans.
Spoon into the tin and sprinkle the rest of the pecans over the top.
Bake for 18-20 mins. Leave in tin for 5 mins then turn out onto a wire rack.
When the brownies are cold, cut them into squares.

A nice deep squidgy brownie, much appreciated in the Bake Sale. They're fairly quick to make and I like the addition of the pecans as an extra texture. Could use walnuts or hazelnuts. I don't think this recipe is better than my usual one, but it's a change.
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Cranberry, Pear and Pecan Cake

This is one of those cake that uses up the leftover Christmas bits and pieces. I had some cranberries, half a bag of pecans and some pears that needed using up. It's based on a recipe I picked up from one of the supermarkets - Sainsbury's I think. It has quite a thick topping, but it's delicious. It does take a bit of effort to make, but I think it's worth it. Pears and cranberries are 2 of our 5 a day!

It's an upside down cake, so you need a heavy bottomed pan about 26cms, as it has to go on the hob and in the oven. I used a Le Creuset saute pan, which worked well.

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Make the topping - melt 75g butter and sugar in the pan over a low heat. Peel and core 900g of pears [about 6] and cut them into about 1cm slices then put them in the pan on top of the butter and sugar. Cook over a gentle heat till the pears are just soft; turn the heat up to caramelize them. Sprinkle 140g of cranberries and 75g of pecans over the mixture and gently mix the fruit together.

Make the cake - cream 120g of butter with 200g of caster sugar. Add 2 yolks [from 2 separated large eggs and a tspn of vanilla extract. Mix in half of 210g of plain flour [which has had 2 tspns of baking powder added to it], add 175ml of milk and then the rest of the flour. Mix it till smooth.

Beat the 2 egg whites till peaks, then fold into the batter gently.

Spread the mixture over the pears and bake for 35-40 mins,

Leave the cake to cool in the pan for 10 mins, but no longer, or the caramelized fruit and nuts will stick to the pan!

Turn out onto a serving plate so that the caramelized side is on top. 

I love the topping on this cake; it's crunchy, soft from the fruit, and goes really well with the soft textured cake.

Peanut, chocolate and pecan cookies

My grandsons came for the weekend, and as the weather wasn't very kind, I wanted to find something to do with them. They enjoy cooking, so we made some cookies.
The original recipe had walnuts in it, but I needed to use up the last of my pecans. We found the recipe in an old Blue Peter book, which had belonged to the boys' Dad. They were then called biscuits, but cookies sounded more modern.
They all took a turn beating the mixture, adding ingredients and making the cookies into balls. I have to own up that I drizzled the chocolate over the ones in the photo - their efforts had the chocolate mainly over the worktop! They proudly took the finished cookies [well most of them!] home for their Mum, and wanted to take some in their lunch boxes.
We made 15 cookies.

Preheat oven 190C/gas5 and grease 2 baking trays.

Put 125g butter, 70g soft brown sugar and 70g caster sugar in a bowl and beat together till nice and creamy. Add 1 beaten egg and beat into the mixture. Fold in 200g of plain flour which has had 1 tspn bicarbonate of soda added, then add 2 tbspn of crunchy peanut butter, 100g chopped chocolate and 100g chopped nuts.
Mix it all together, then pull together with your hands to make a ball of stickyish dough. If it's too sticky just add a little more flour.
Make 15 balls and put them on the baking trays, leaving some space for the cookies to spread. Squash them down a bit.
Bake for 10-12 mins till golden and cool on a wire rack.
Melt 100g chocolate and either drizzle the chocolate over the cookies, using a fork to make lines, or put the chocolate in an icing bag and pipe lines over.

We only tried one each, so they could take the rest home. Lovely textures - crunch from the peanuts and pecans, then a good hit of chocolate. Very moreish.

Apple, pecan and apricot loaf cake

We love tea breads and loaf cakes, or anything with fruit in really. I found this recipe in my cuttings folder, and I think it originally came from 'Woman's Weekly' magazine a few years ago. I adapted it to suit our tastes, as the original recipe used prunes, apple and pecans. It also used wholemeal flour, but I'd run out, so used white. I added some cinnamon, which is always good with apples, imho, and I didn't toast the pecans, as suggested.
So here's my adapted recipe:

1 apple [about 175g - I used a granny Smith with its skin on]
175g dried apricots
175g pecans
11/2 tspns baking powder
220g plain flour
110g butter or margarine
175g light demerara sugar
2 beaten eggs
3 tbspn milk

Preheat oven 180C/gas4

Grease and bottom line a 900g loaf tin.

Add the baking powder and cinnamon to the flour and sieve into a bowl. Then add the other ingredients, except the fruit and nuts, and beat together with an electric hand mixer. If the mixture seems to thick and doesn't drop off the beaters, add a bit more milk.

Spoon into the tin and bake for about 1 hr and 15mins. I had to cover the top towards the end, as the top was browning and the middle wasn't cooked. Leave to cool in the tin.

                      This is the mixture before being stirred together - rather a lot of fruit and nuts!

It's a very moist cake, and breaks easily. I think there's too much fruit, so would use less if I made it again. It does, however, have a great flavour. The original recipe said to leave the apricots whole, but this seemed a silly idea, so I chopped them in quarters, and even then they were fairly big chunks.

Israeli Date and Pecan Cake

This month's challenge from Alpha Bakes is a hard one - baking something beginning with letter I . Lots of recipes begin with 'iced ....... ' but I wanted to find something different.
I borrowed a book from the library called 'Cakes, Tortes and Gateaux'  - it has no author, and I found a recipe for an Israeli cake. I love cakes with nuts and I like dates, so had to give it a try. I changed a few things in the recipe, and had to convert it to grams. It worked out really well, and is full of good things.

2 eggs
180ml honey
150ml buttermilk
1 tspn vanilla essence
3 mashed bananas
300g sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
100g soft brown sugar
2 tbspn cocoa
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn allspice
pinch salt
125g butter
150g chopped dates
125g chopped pecans
2 tbspns honey for top of cake

Preheat oven 180C/gas4
grease a 23cm springform tin

Beat together the eggs, honey, buttermilk and vanilla essence, then add the bananas.
Keep 2 tbspn of the flour, then put the rest with the baking powder, sugar, cocoa, spices and salt in another bowl and add the egg mixture. Mix together gently with an electric beater or stand mixer, then add the butter and beat till smooth. Takes about 4 mins.
Mix the 2 tbspn flour with the dates and pecans and fold these into the mixture.
Spoon into the tin and bake for 1 hr and 20 mins.
Heat the 2 tbspn of honey and brush over the cake, then leave it to cool.

It's a lovely nutty cake, not too sweet, and it also keeps very well in an airtight tin. We had it as a dessert with some creme fraiche, but ice cream would be good too. It's full of flavour and is moist, but not too soft. You can really taste the dates and pecans. I expected it to be like a sticky toffee pudding, but it wasn't.

Alpha Bakes is a monthly baking challenge hosted alternately by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker blog and Caroline of Caroline Makes blog. This month Caroline is hosting, the letter is I and you can find out more about the challenge here .

Pecan and Honey Loaf

I still have some pecans to use up from the bag I bought a while ago from the sadly- no- longer Julian Graves shop. I love making loaf cakes, so this is my variation on a recipe that had walnuts in it. Had a pot of local honey in the cupboard which needed using up, so added 1 tbspn to the cake mixture and also put 1 tbspn in the icing.

190g butter
190g caster sugar
190g plain flour
1 tspn baking powder
3 eggs
1 tspn vanilla essence
1 tbspn runny honey
60g chopped nuts - pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts

Icing - icing sugar, lemon juice and 1 tbspn of honey - depends how thick you want your icing to be  as to how much icing sugar and lemon juice you use!

Preheat oven 170C/gas 3
Grease a 900g loaf tin.

Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer till white and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time, and beat well after each one.

Fold in the flour gently, a bit at a time.
Add the vanilla and 1 tbspn of honey, then mix in the chopped nuts by hand.
Spoon into the tin and bake for about an hour, till risen and golden.
Cool on a wire rack, and when cold, spoon over some icing made with icing sugar, lemon juice and the other tbspn of honey.

Lovely subtle honey flavour in the background, enhanced by the icing. Good texture, moist, and think I prefer pecans to walnuts. A useful recipe to have, as it can be played around with to give new flavours.

Little pecan tartlets

Most of the supermarkets seem to have nuts on offer at the moment, so I've stocked up and now need to use some of them.
I love pecan pie, but it can be very sweet and rich. These tarts are little versions, but still give you that lovely pecan fix. The recipe comes from a magazine supplement on 'Nuts', from Woman's Weekly, I think.
As it's Thanksgiving Day today, pecans seem appropriate.


Recipe makes 18 tartlets, so you need 2 x 12 bun tins.

I love this pastry as it uses ground almonds as well as flour, which gives it a soft texture.

You need:

Pastry:
150g plain flour
25g caster sugar [golden's best]
50g ground almonds
85g butter, cubed
1 medium beaten egg
2 tspns lemon juice

Filling:
70g melted butter
50g light muscovado sugar
2 medium beaten eggs
2 tbspns golden syrup
juice of 1/2 lemon
100g pecan nuts, chopped but not finely

The pastry is easy to make as you put the flour, sugar, almonds and butter into a food processor and whizz it quickly, or of course you can rub the butter in by hand. Then you add the egg and the lemon juice and a quick whizz again then bring the dough together with your hands.
Wrap in clingfilm and put in fridge for 15 mins.
Roll the pastry out thinly on a floured surface and cut out 18 circles with a 7-8 cm cutter, fluted or plain.
Put into the tins, pressing them in gently. Prick the bottom of each with a fork and chill for about 2 hours or leave overnight in the fridge.

Preheat oven 190C/gas 5

Beat together all the filling ingredients except the pecans, then add the nuts. Put some of this mixture into each pastry case and bake for 15-20 mins till golden. Leave them to cool in the tin for about 10 mins then put onto a wire rack.

I love the filling - not too sweet [for my taste anyway] and with a nice crunchy texture from the pecans. Have already said that the almonds in the pastry give it a great soft texture, a nice contrast to the nutty filling.

Coconut ice and yogurt pecan fudge

One of the presents I got for Christmas was a new sugar thermometer. Ever since I was a child,  I've been interested in making sweets. My Mum used to make them, and I inherited her old thermometer. I also inherited her book 'Toffees, fudges, chocolates and sweets' by Mary Novak, and I have a battered copy of Margaret Powell's ' Sweetmaking for children'. I made sweets with my children and yesterday I made some with one of my grandsons. We made coconut ice and he helped me make yogurt pecan fudge, the latter being an excuse to use my new thermometer!

Coconut ice

My grandson wanted to make something on his own, so this is a very easy version.

6 tbspns condensed milk
275g icing sugar
175g dessicated coconut
pink food colouring

Mix together the milk and icing sugar, then stir in the coconut. The mixture will be very stiff. Divide it into 2. Colour one half with the colouring.

Grease and line a small cake tin, and put the white mixture in a layer at the bottom. Put the pink mixture on top and leave to set. Cut into bars or squares.

Yogurt pecan fudge

This fudge is different from the normal vanilla fudge; it's a bit fiddly to make but is very moreish.
The recipe makes about half a kilo of fudge.

225ml natural yoghurt [not low fat or Greek]
1 tspn bicarbonate of soda
400g soft light brown sugar
30ml golden syrup
60g unsalted butter
150g chopped and toasted pecans

Grease and line a 20cm square or round tin with parchment paper.
Put the yogurt and bicarb. in a heavy saucepan and leave for about 20 mins.
Prepare a bowl with iced water.
Add the sugar and syrup to the yoghurt mixture, put the pan over a medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
When the sugar's dissolved, bring to the boil then add the butter. Boil till the syrup reaches soft ball stage [114C/238F]. Take off the heat and dip ther bottom of ther pan in the iced water for a few seconds, then leave to cool till the mixture is luke warm [about 50C/122F].
Beat till creamy then add the chopped nuts. Pour into the tin and leave to completely cool - can take up to 8 hours.
Lift the fudge out using the paper and cut into pieces. Store in an airtight tin or box.

The yoghurt makes this a lighter fudge and gives it a tangy taste. Next time I'll use a square tin, as the slices I cut in the round one were rather big!

Next sweet session I want to try making toffee, so watch this space!

Pecan squares

As I mentioned is a previous post, my grandson has decided he'd like to bake, so I was looking through some old chiIdren's cookery books and found this recipe . I think it's a strange way to make a cake, but decided to try it anyway.
It make 12 squares.

For the bottom of the squares:

175g butter
75g icing sugar
225g plain flour

Topping:

75g butter
2 tbspns golden syrup [or maple syrup]
2 tbspns milk
1 tspn vanilla essence
50g soft brown sugar
2 eggs
100g pecan nuts

Grease and line a tin 18x27 cm.
Preheat oven 180C/350F/gas4

To make the base:

Put the butter into a bowl, add the sugar and beat till fluffy. Fold in the flour. Bring the mixture into a ball.
Flour the worktop and knead the ball a few times to make it smooth. Then press the dough into the tin - using the back of a spoon helps. Bake this for about 15 mins till it's golden. Let the base cool.
Put the butter in a pan and melt over a low heat, then stir in the sugar, syrup and vanilla essence.
Beat the eggs in a small bowl, take the pan off the heat then stir in the eggs.
Pour this mixture over the cooled base and sprinkle the pecans over the topping.
Bake for about 25 mins till a dark golden colour - it should still be a little gooey in the centre.
Let it cool in the tin, then cut into 12 squares.

We all enjoyed eating them.

Date and pecan cake

Need to finish up the bag of pecans I bought from Julian Graves, so found this recipe on an Aussie blog. I've changed it a bit. It's supposed to originate in Israel.

2 eggs
180ml honey + 2 tbspns for brushing the cake
150ml buttermilk
1 tspn vanilla essence
3 bananas - mashed
300g sr flour
1 tspn baking powder
100g light brown sugar
2 tbspns cocoa
1 tspn cinnamon
1 tspn allspice
125g butter - softened
150g dates - stoned and chopped
125g pecans - chopped

Preheat oven 180C/350F/gas 4

Grease and base line a 22cm springform cake tin.
Mix the eggs, the 180ml honey, buttermilk and vanilla essence together till smooth, then add the bananas.
Keep back 2 tbspns flour, then put the rest in a bowl with the baking powder, sugar and spices and mix well.
Add the egg mixture to the flour, and using a hand beater, mix gently, then add the butter and beat till smooth.
Mix the other 2 tbspns of flour with the dates and pecans and fold these into the mixture. Spoon into the tin and bake for about an hour.
Heat the other 2 spoons of honey and brush it over the cake while it's still warm.
The cake keeps for about 5 days in a tin.
It makes a nice dessert, warmed and served with ice cream.

Pecan and maple syrup tart

Bought a large bag of pecans recently on offer from Julian Graves. My lovely friend Jackie brought us some maple syrup from her recent trip to Canada, so, a marriage made in heaven.

It's such an easy tart to make, and if you have some pastry in the freezer, it's even quicker.

Pastry:
250g plain flour
125g salted, cold butter
2 tbspn sugar
3-4 tbspn very cold water

I make this in the food processor, make double and keep half, wrapped carefully, in the freezer. I let the half I'm going to use, rest in the fridge for a couple of hours. I don't like sugar in pastry, even in sweet desserts, so I don't add it.

Filling:
60g melted butter
100g sugar [I used golden caster]
180ml maple syrup
2 eggs
250g pecans

Preheat oven 190C/375F/gas5

Grease a rectangular tart tin. [I bought mine from Lakeland and have had lots of use out of it. It's loose-bottomed!] Roll the pastry out into the tart tin.
Beat the butter, sugar and maple syrup together with an electric mixer and keep beating while you add the eggs.
Put the pecans in the base of the tart then pour over the butter mixture.
Bake for 15 mins at 190C/gas 5 then lower the temperature to 170C/gas3-4 [depending on your oven] and bake for another 25-30 mins.
Let it cool in the tin.