Honey Pecan Triangles

A while back I posted a recipe for pecan squares. They were such a hit that I made them over and over again for various events, all the while not knowing the original source.

The other day I found a new pecan square recipe in the January issue of Cooks’ Country, where they mentioned the original source as “an old 70’s White House recipe”. With some searching, I was able to find the original in Google books and the ever-helpful Louise dug up another copy of the original original Presidential Cookies pecan square recipe in a newsletter. I also found variations from Ina Garten, Martha Stewart and Taste of Home — all very highly rated.

But back to the Cooks’ Country recipe. It was a half batch version of the original white house recipe, with some changes – one being rather questionable and to this point, I still wonder if it was happy accident. The crust calls for only 6 tablespoons of butter and the filling calls for “remaining butter” which turns out to be 14 tablespoons — keep in mind, this is an 8 inch pan. I used the amounts of butter called for in the magazine and as I watched the butter pool all over the filling, I was pretty sure I’d just wasted loads of butter and pecans. Luckily, I was wrong.

What happened was the excess butter in the topping dripped down into the shortbread crust making it really dense and buttery. Once they’d set, the bars held together perfectly and had a good flavor or. I sent them to work with Todd, still a little worried people would find them too buttery or rich, but nobody did. In fact, people loved them.

So if you have the January issue of Cooks’ Country, you can see their version of the recipe with what I still think suspect might have been typo causing the recipe to have too much butter in the filling, too little in the crust. But whatever happened — it worked, and I’m curious to see what you all think about the recipe as printed in Cooks’ Country. If you don’t have the original, here’s a similar version. I broke the recipe into “Crust” and “Filling”. I also used salted butter, as the original white house version didn’t contain extra salt and called for “butter” rather than salted butter. If you don’t have any salted butter, a scant ¼ teaspoon in the crust and 1/2 teaspoon to the filling should pump up the flavor, but you can leave out the salt if you’re inclined…

…or you can just make one of the versions I linked to above. I don’t think you can go wrong with these.

Honey Pecan Triangles

Crust:
6 tablespoons softened butter
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour

Filling:
14 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 ¾ cups toasted pecans and chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line an 8 inch square metal pan with non-stick foil or line with regular foil and spray with cooking spray.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Beat in the egg, then add the flour and stir until mixed. Press into bottom of baking pan and prick crust several times with a fork. Bake crust on center rack for 15 minutes, then let it cool for 20 minutes.

Make the filling. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the brown sugar and honey and gently boil for 2 minutes to dissolve the sugar, stirring once or twice. Add the cream and boil for about 30 seconds. Remove from heat and stir in the pecans. Pour over crust and bake at 375 F for 20 minutes.

Let bars sit at room temperature for at least an hour before cutting.

Lift from pan, set on a cutting board, cut into 9 squares, then cut the squares diagonally into triangles. Makes 18.

You could even cut those triangles into smaller triangles and make 36.