Chocolate pecan pie bars, courtesy of Amy’s mom

By Katherine

Hopefully those are the only snowflakes this season

You all know Amy right? Well if you don’t go check out her wonderful blog Elephant Eats. She featured these bars as part of her pre-Christmas cooking festivities. They were in her mom’s recipe box. I made some changes, not because the bars weren’t already perfect, but because I seem to be incapable of not reaching for the bourbon when I break out the pecans. I also reduced the sugar in the topping, figuring the corn syrup would suffice, but threw in a bit of maple syrup. I never seem to have chocolate chips on hand, so I used dark chocolate. The result was a bit more pie like. Hers had a lovely crisp looking top that made them more stackable and the layers popped more. It’s easy to see why they made it into the recipe box.

Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars (adapted from Amy’s mom’s recipe box)

• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups corn syrup
• 4.25 ounce dark chocolate (we use Hershey’s)
• 4 eggs
• 1 ounce bourbon
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 2 1/2 cups chopped pecans

Grease bottom and sides of 15″x10″x1″ baking dish. In a stand mixer on medium, beat flour, sugar, butter and salt until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Press into the bottom of prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 20 min. Meanwhile, in a three-quart pan, stir corn syrup and chocolate on low until melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes. Stir in maple syrup, bourbon, eggs and pecans. Pour filling over hot crust and bake at 350 until firm around edges but slightly soft in center, about 30 minutes. Cool in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.