Pecan and Sea Salt Toffee Bars

I really wanted to get this Pecan and Sea Salt Toffee Bars recipe out to you before Christmas, but life happened. Such is life right? At least that is what I keep telling myself so I feel better for missing three weeks worth of blog post over the past couple of months. In our house, toffee bars are a Christmas tradition. These Pecan and Sea Salt Toffee Bars are so good I could not wait to share them until next Christmas. Our recipe is an upgrade to a well-loved classic.

Every year my husband’s stepmother makes them and sends them to us. I love them, and I think they are delicious, but her recipe uses walnuts and I am slightly allergic (not deathly, but enough to make me uncomfortable). I wanted to make them without them, but I also started to think how can I make these my own and even more special.

Que the dark chocolate, toasted pecans and flaked sea salt! I love pecans and it’s a nut that I can actually eat and toasting them brings out the flavor. Most traditional recipes for toffee bars use milk chocolate or milk chocolate chips. Here we have used really good dark chocolate (72% semi-sweet) so the bars have a more intense chocolate flavor. The flaked sea salt rounds out all the sweetness and gives more depth of flavor to the chocolate. I also use really good butter, I know it may seem unimportant, but good butter can take your baking up another notch and provide more flavor. I hope you enjoy these as much as we do, and it becomes a family tradition in your house.

5 from 1 reviews

Pecan and Sea Salt Toffee Bars

 

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Recipe adapted from Epicurious

Author: Dominique Cook

Serves: 24

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) good unsalted butter (such as Kerrygold), at room temperature
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ¼ tsp salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 9 ounces good dark chocolate (72% semi-sweet), broken into pieces
• ⅔ cup chopped pecans
• 1 tsp flaked sea salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Place the chopped pecans on a sheet pan, and toast in the oven until fragrant, about 4 minutes. Allow to cool.
3. Line a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with parchment, using enough that it hangs over the sides. This will help you pull out the bars from the pan when cooled.
4. In a large bowl, add the butter and sugar. With an electric mixer, beat on medium speed until light and well combined, about 2 minutes. Add the egg yolk, vanilla, and ¼ tsp salt and beat together. On low speed, gradually add in the flour and beat just until mixed. The dough will be stiff. Pat the dough evenly over the bottom of the baking pan.
5. Bake in the oven until pale gold on top, about 20 minutes.
6. Remove the pan from the oven and scatter the chocolate evenly over the crust. Return the pan to the oven for 1 minute. Remove the pan again and, using a knife, spread the chocolate evenly over the crust. Sprinkle with chopped pecans and then the 1 teaspoon of flaked sea salt.
7. Let cool completely in the pan, at least 4-5 hours. Once cooled, pick up the sides of the parchment to remove the bars from the pan and place on top of a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, cut into 24 squares.

3.5.3229