Honey Pecan Squares

I first tried one of these squares at work when a former colleague brought them in for the weekly Friday breakfast.  I instantly fell in love with them.  After one taste, I had to get the recipe for these squares and make them myself.  When I made these for my family, my daughter referred to them as “drops of heaven”.  They are most certainly heavenly!

These squares actually restarted my baking craze.  When my kids were toddlers I used to bake a lot but stopped when I figured out we were limited to 24 hours in a day.  I don’t think I was a tiger mom, but looking back, I may have overdone it with the activities my kids were in.  Not only did they have the usual school and homework but they also participated in piano classes (and practice), Chinese school (and homework), Kumon math (and homework), swimming lessons, soccer playing, Kung fu lessons, skating lessons and also helped out in the family business.  I was just keeping them so busy that they didn’t have a chance to get into trouble.  Our nights and weekends were filled.  Fast forward 10 years when the kids were able to figure out what I was doing and demanded their independence from some of the activities.  No more were the weekends filled with chauffeuring the kids around and there was again some time to bake.

Ingredients:

Crust:

    ½ cup + 2 Tbsp softened butter divided (no substitute)

    ½ cup packed brown sugar (loosely if you want less sweet)

    1 egg yolk

    1 ½ cup all-purpose flour

Topping:

    1 cup packed brown sugar (loosely if you want less sweet)

    ½ cup butter

    ¼ cup honey

    ½ cup whipping cream

    4 cups (400g) chopped pecans

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350F

Making the crust:

• Line a 13”x9”x2” baking pan with aluminum foil.  Butter the foil with the 2 Tbsp of butter.
• In a mixing bowl, cream remaining butter with brown sugar.  Add egg yolk; mix well.  Gradually add flour.  Texture should resemble coarse crumbs.  Pour into prepared pan; spread evenly and press/pack down crumbs with back of spoon.  Bake at 350F for 13 minutes or until golden brown.

Making the topping:

• While the crust is baking, in a sauce pan, combine brown sugar, butter, and honey.  Bring to a boil over medium heat; cook and stir for 3 minutes.  Remove from heat; stir in pecans and whipping cream.  Pour mixture over crust; spread evenly (I like to flatten the topping with a spatula) and bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes or until hot and bubbly.  Cool completely on a wire rack.
• Use the foil to lift the bars out of the pan.  Remove foil; on a cutting board, cut into squares (approx. 1.5”x1.5”)

Mama Lu's Notes: When making the crust and adding the flour to the creamed butter and sugar, be careful when using a stand mixer, with the paddle attachment.  The stand mixer/paddle attachment caused a lump of dough to form that was very difficult to spread out in the pan.  You can use a hand mixer to mix in the flour.  In the end, the texture should resemble coarse crumbs.