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Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars
These are the GOOIEST chocolate pecan pie bars you will ever find! They're studded with dark chocolate over a buttery brown sugar press-in crust that stays crisp. The filling is not too sweet and I warn you that these are highly addictive!
Ingredients
Crust:
- 1 cup (142g) all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup (70g) packed light brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup (75g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Pecan filling:
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 2 tablespoon (30ml) heavy whipping cream or light cream
- ½ cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
- ¼ cup (60ml) golden corn syrup
- 1 teaspoon (3g) all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon apple cider vinegar or white vinegar
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (110g) chopped pecans
- ⅓ cup (56g) dark chocolate chips plus extra for topping
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly butter an 8x8-inch baking dish or 8x8-inch metal baking pan with aluminum foil and butter the foil.
- NOTE: I recommend using a metal baking pan for this recipe since it conducts heat faster and will make a crispier crust.
- Make the crust. combine flour, brown sugar and salt in a medium bowl and blend together with your fingertips so that there are no lumps of brown sugar. Add the melted butter and stir with a wooden spoon to combine, then bring it together with your fingertips to blend evenly. Tip the mixture out into your prepared pan and pat it down in an even layer, pressing it about ½-inch up the sides. Run the back of a spoon over the surface to smooth it out. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly golden and a bit brown around the edges.
- Make the filling while the crust bakes, and once it is baked, reduce the oven temperature to 325°F
- Make the filling. Whisk together cream, brown sugar, corn syrup and eggs in a large bowl until smooth and syrupy. Mix in vinegar, vanilla extract and salt, then whisk in flour until thoroughly blended and smooth. Stir in pecans and chocolate chips.
- Pour the mixture over the still-warm baked crust and spread it out but don't push it to the edges as we don't want it to leak down the sides. Sprinkle extra chocolate chips over top and poke some pecan halves into the filling. Bake for 20-25 minutes until firm and set around the edges and it still feels just a tiny bit soft in the middle. If using a glass dish, you may need 5-10 minutes more. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Refrigerate for 1 hour before slicing into squares.
- A note on lining the pan: After you pre-bake the crust, it will shrink a bit on cooling and come away from the sides. This happens especially with non-stick parchment paper leaving a gap between your crust and the paper, so that the filling can seep through to the bottom and make a soggy crust. There are a few ways to avoid this: do not line the dish. Just grease it lightly and cut squares in the dish to serve. If you wish to use a liner for easy removal of the slab, choose a metal pan, line with foil and build the crust up the sides about ½-inch to create an edge border to hold in the filling.
- FOIL VS. PARCHMENT
- I like to use foil to line pans for recipes with fillings that are more fluid like this pecan pie filling. As the pre-baked base cools, it can shrink slightly away from the non-stick surface of parchment paper and leave a gap where the filling can seep through and make a soggy bottom. Foil adheres better to the base so that any shrinkage won’t compromise the crunch.
