Brown Butter Pecan Pie Bars with Salted Caramel Sauce
Calling all pecan pie lovers to try these bars that are easier and quicker to make, easier to serve, and dare I say, taste better?!?! I make my favorite caramel pecan pie filling but I baked it on a thickkkk brown butter shortbread and ohhhhhh my is she good.
If you’re not familiar with my pecan pie, it’s THE BEST. It’s made with homemade salted caramel sauce because I don’t like using corn syrup so the texture and flavor is superior.
If you haven’t made caramel sauce at home yet, make sure to read my post on that.
& if you haven’t browned butter, please do so because that is also superior, I have a full post on that too.
I also have pecan pie brownies because I love you and you will love them.
I think either of these served next to my dutch apple pie on Thanksgiving will make you dessert famous.
Ingredients & Substitutions
*full recipe is in the recipe card at the bottom!
Butter – I really prefer to use salted butter for the shortbread crust and the caramel but unsalted also works. I would just add an extra pinch of salt to each.
Sugar – I used light brown sugar in the shortbread and the filling but I use granulated sugar for the caramel. I don’t recommend swapping either of those out but if you dark brown sugar also works in place of the granulated sugar.
Heavy cream – you’ll need this for the caramel
Flour – I used all-purpose flour – bread four or cake flour would also be fine in a pinch but I don’t recommend swapping for something other than a wheat flour.
Eggs – I used eggs in the filling, make sure they’re large and room temperature is best.
Vanilla – I prefer vanilla bean paste but vanilla extract also works
Salt – I like to use fine sea salt but if you use anything else, just do a pinch less.
Pecans – well it is a pecan pie but I guess if you wanted to you could technically try this with other nuts. I think cashews would be great…going to try that asap!!
TIP: I HIGHLY recommend using a digital scale, as dry ingredients are almost always over measured.
How To Make The Best Pecan Pie Bars
There’s three parts to these pecan pie bars.
The Salted Caramel Sauce – aka, liquid gold. No caramel is as good as homemade but in a pinch you could use store bought for this recipe.
The Brown Butter Shortbread – with four simple ingredients, we’ve created magic. I’m not a shortbread girl, there’s just nothing impressive about it HOWEVER, the brown butter, brown sugar and cinnamon make the best, most flavorful shortbread ever.
Pecan Pie Filling – literally a scaled down version from my caramel pecan pie.
Salted Caramel Sauce
Sugar gets cooked with a little water until it turns a gorgeous amber color.
Then mix in the butter until it’s combined, followed by the heavy whipping cream.
Pour into heat safe jar and add salt and vanilla.
heat sugar over medium-low heatsugar turning into an amber colorstir in the butter until the caramel is smoothadd cream to caramelized sugarconsistency of homemade salted caramel sauce at room temperature.
Brown Butter Shortbread
Brown the butter – melt the butter in a pan, stirring intermittently until it begins to foam. Then stir continuously while it’s browning.
Mix in the sugar and flour
Press into the pan and bake just halfway.
heat the butter in a pot until it’s meltedcook while stirring, until milk solids settle and brownbrown butter mixed with brown sugar, vanilla & cinnamon for the shortbreadFlour mixed into dough, finished shortbread doughshortbread pressed into panshortbread halfway baked, ready for filling
Pecan Pie Filling
Whisk all the ingredients together, besides the pecans, until they’re well combined.
Then fold in the pecans.
Pour over your par-baked crust and finish baking.
eggs, sugar, butter, caramel & vanilla whisked togetherpecans mixed into filling and poured on top of crustpecan pie bars finished baking
Tip: just like pecan pie, these can be difficult to slice nicely so I refrigerate them for a little after they’ve cooled and once they’re firm, you can slice them perfectly. I always clean my knife between every slice too to keep every slice looking clean.
How To Store Bars
These pecan pie bars can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container or a cake dome for a couple of days or refrigerated for a week.
I also freeze them in an airtight container as soon as I’ve sliced them to keep them fresh.
Just bring them back to room temperature before serving by thawing at room temperature overnight or a few hours before.
Thank you so much for being here, if you love this recipe please leave me a 5-star rating or a review.
My easy caramel pecan pie filling baked on top of the best thick layer of brown butter shortbread. It's made with caramel sauce instead of corn syrup and
Begin by preparing the homemade salted caramel sauce. In a medium saucepan, heat the sugar and water over medium heat. Place the lid on the pan and remove it every 2-3 minutes to swirl (NOT stir) the sugar.
200 grams granulated sugar, 60 mL water
Once the sugar changes to an amber color, remove it from heat (it will continue cooking because the pan is hot so do this immediately). Stir in the butter and whisk continuously. Once that's combined, stir in the heavy cream and then the salt.
56 grams salted butter room temperature, 120 mL heavy whipping cream room temperature
Once it's all mixed, pour it into a heat safe bowl and stir in the salt. Set it aside and allow it to cool at room temperature for about an hour. It doesn't have to cool fully, just enough not to cook the eggs in the filling.
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
Brown Butter
If the butter is cold, cut it into cubes and place it into a light colored, medium size saucepan, over medium-low heat.
283 grams salted butter brown to 233 grams
Use a wooden spoon or rubber spatula to stir the butter occasionally. It will begin to bubble, continue stirring intermittently.
Once it begins to foam, you won’t be able to see what’s happening so stir continuously, making sure to scrape the solids off the bottom of the pan. The milk solids will begin to settle on the bottom of the pan and darken in color.
Remove from the heat and continue stirring for another minute or so, until the butter darkens into an amber color.
Pour the butter, with all the little solid bits, into a heat safe jar and allow it to cool.
Shortbread
Preheat the oven to 350F (177C) and grease and line an 8×8 baking pan with baking spray and parchment paper.
Measure out the brown butter and allow it to cool for a few minutes before using.
186 grams browned butter melted
Add in the brown sugar, vanilla and cinnamon and mix until they're well combined.
Fold in the flour, just until the last streak of flour is mixed in, and press into the prepared pan.
240 grams all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
Bake for about 15 minutes, just until the edges are starting to brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool while you prepare the filling.
Filling
In a medium bowl, combine the cooled caramel sauce, brown sugar, eggs, brown butter and vanilla until they're smooth. Add the pecans and toss until they're fully coated.
Pour the filling over the crust and return to the oven for about 30 minutes, until the filling no longer looks wet or liquid-y. It should be sightly puffed around the edges and have slight wobble in the center when you jiggle it.
Remove from the oven and cool completely before slicing. I like to refrigerate it before slicing so I can get cleaner slices.
Top with extra salted caramel sauce and a pinch of sea salt flakes.
pinch of sea salt flakes
Notes
Store fully covered in the refrigerator or freezer, serve at room temperature.For a 9×13″ pan, I multiplied the recipe by 1.5x and kept bake time pretty similar.*feel free the replace caramel sauce with PURE maple syrup or honey.
