I wanted to enter these in the Toll House Tales contest, but decided the story behind the recipe wasn’t interesting enough. It goes like this:
“I had three partially full bags of different types of baking chips — butterscotch, white and semisweet. I also had some pecans. Cramming them all into a blondie seemed like a good idea, so that’s what I did.”
See? Not exciting. But the bars were excellent. They were dense, not-too-cakey, packed with interesting flavors and quite simple. The batter is made in one saucepan and the recipe doesn’t require an electric mixer. If you don’t have all three flavors of chips, use 1 1/4 cups of whatever flavor you do have.
Triple Chip Toasted Pecan Bars
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
A saucepan blondie made with 3 types of chips and toasted pecans
Author: Cookie Madness
Recipe type: Dessert
Serves: 16
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup pecan halves
- 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg, cold
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt plus a pinch
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup old fashioned oats
- 3/4 cup semisweet or dark chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup butterscotch morsels
- 1/4 cup white chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 inch square metal pan with nonstick foil.
- Put the pecan halves on a baking sheet and bake for 7 minutes or until toasty and aromatic. Let cool completely and chop.
- Meanwhile, in a large (3 quart) saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and stir well, then remove from heat and let mixture cool for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the vanilla and the cold egg. When egg is mixed in, stir in the baking powder and salt, followed by the flour and oats. If the batter is still warm, let it cool down a bit more before adding the chips and toasted pecans all at once.
- Spread the batter in the pan and bake one center rack for 28 minutes or until bars appear brown and shiny. Let cool completely. Lift from pan and slice into bars.
Notes
Prep time includes some “waiting around” time. The mixture needs to cool before the egg is added, and again before the chips are added. If you add the chips to hot batter, they’ll start to melt before you put the bars in the oven.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
These look so awesome! You should have entered them.
Those do look good. I keep thinking about the contest, too, but don’t have anything exciting to share either.
I think you should just make up something exciting. 
Go for the contest Anna – most of us can relate to your story of having partial bags of chips cluttering our pantries! (I wanted to say your story is relateable/relatable but I guess neither of those words are in the English language.)
I just made cashew blondies and the Amateur Gourmet made drunken blondies. Blondies are on the brain! I absolutely love pecans but seldom feel the desire to make the investment of making pie or Derby pie bars, so these would be great for a quicker pecan ‘fix.’
Maybe you could embellish by saying something like “While these were baking, I smelled smoke in the house. The smoke detectors started screaming. I knew I should run out, but I couldn’t leave my Triple Chip Toasted Pecan Bars! Then I realized it was the oven timer buzzing – I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Whew – what a dream!”
Anna, you can’t win if you don’t try – so send it in!
I love recipes with melted butter.
That’s funny, Martha!
I think Martha should enter.
These sound excellent. I also think you should do an exercise in creative writing and enter them. You could win!
another recipe added to my list