Pecan Pie Bars… My Recipe Mashup

My two favorite sources of recipes are the backs of packages and my family.  I’ve got some great cooks hanging out in the branches of my family tree and no company wants to put out a bad recipe that could curb sales of their products.

My grandmothers were both known for their ability to turn out fabulous food.  My grandma Ruth (dad’s mom) was known for her Swedish rye bread, angel food cakes and pies.  My grandma Fern (mom’s mom) could feed a crowd with a pound of ground beef and whatever was in the cupboard. Ruth’s family was small and settled in the community where she spent her life. Fern’s family was expansive and just a bit chaotic from living with aunts after her mother died while she was an infant and as her dad remarried. I can’t help but wonder how their growing up, education and marriages influenced them in the kitchens they called home.

Fern’s children are all pretty proficient in the kitchen and food has always been a centerpiece to any family gathering among her clan.  There have been so many good recipes from the Johnson crew over the years that my mom sat down one year and hand lettered a collection of submitted recipes from her generation and one back.  That collection is one I turn to time and again, but I’m beginning to realize that my generation is totally ready to take the wheel on the food legacy of our clan.  I’m not the only one sharing my recipes – my cousin Deb’s daughter has a fabulous food and entertaining blog and I’ve asked several of my cousins for their recipe for whatever they’ve brought to our less frequent but still well populated gatherings.

I would love to say it goes back to our agricultural heritage.  When you raise what you eat and drink, food is not a luxury that must be accounted for and doesn’t allow for mistakes.  It is an adventure and privilege of abundance influenced by the weather, time and productivity. It is far too easy to take that abundance for granted when you have more than enough.

The pages of that cookbook from the Johnson clan are well marked by mixing splatter, grubby fingers and misplaced samples.  It is also heavily populated with cookies (my arch enemy of cooking), treats and desserts.  One of my favorite recipes in that cookbook is for peach kuchen, from my aunt Joyce.  I’ll share that one on this page someday.

I was looking for a pecan pie recipe that could be turned into bars for a work event, but just wasn't seeing what I thought could work very well.  So I looked in my recipe box and thought it was time to pull parts of two really good recipes together. 

After a trial, the crust of Joyce’s recipe plus our family's favorite pecan pie filling was a great way to make a dessert go further and helped finish off a come and go meal for donors, friends and staff at the community college I work for. The filling recipe was off the obscure back of a pecan wrapper that I got at Sam’s one year.  It is fabulously rich and not too many nuts so they sit nicely in the filling. 

I wish I could give credit to the pecan grower cooperative that presented it, but the package name was replaced by “Emma’s favorite Pecan Pie” in the recipe index.  Lesson learned.  I do know that the pecan tree is the state tree of Texas and there are over 1,000 varieties of pecans, many named for Native American Tribes. It is one of my favorite nuts in breads, ice creams, candy and to munch. I'm amazed at how some pecan's can add a taste almost like coconut or faintly of pineapple in certain recipes, but add a warm nuttiness to other recipes. 

Enough rambling… Let’s get to cooking!  This recipe is a great replacement for a dessert, but it could be cut into 1 inch squares, set on parchment and drizzled with melted semi sweet chips for a holiday treat swap – one pan, not a lot of fuss and you are done! That’s my kind of treat.

Pecan Pie Bars

Groceries:
Crust:

2 C Flour

1 C Sugar

¼ t Baking Powder

½ t Salt

1 Cup Margarine or shortening (don’t use butter in this one, unless you want a very firm crust which could be better for the cookie style)

Filling:

3 Eggs Beaten

1 C dark Karo Syrup

½ C Sugar

2 T melted Butter

2 t Vanilla Extract

¼ t Salt

1 ½ - 2 Cups Finely chopped, Pecans

The Process:
Crust:

Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the margarine. Pat into a 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Set to the side.

Filling:

Blend all ingredients and pour over the crust.  Bake for 30-45 minutes at 350 degrees F.  Let cool completely before cutting and serving.  Can be served with whipped cream.