Friday Finds: Girlie Girl Army & Caramel Pecan Bars

You just can’t go wrong with caramel and pecans.

This is not my photo - though mine looked just as yummy!

I subscribe to a weekly email newsletter (would that be an e-letter?) sent out by the girls at Girlie Girl Army. It’s a great little newsletter that is all things green, vegan, go girl go, and so much more.  I love it.

Last week there was a recipe for Caramel Pecan Bars and I just knew that I had to try them.  We were going to my Mom and Dad’s for a BBQ (first of the season – woo hoo) and I was in charge of dessert.  I love an excuse to try a new recipe.

The recipe originally comes from the vegan cookbook Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar . It’s written by the creators of the Post Punk Kitchen which is a great website and resource for vegans and people who want to cook and bake egg and dairy-free.

Their recipe is not gluten-free so I took care of that part and made a few other changes along the way.  I like this kind of recipe because you can do it in stages – mix the flours, make the base, bake the base, cool the base (overnight if necessary), and finish it off with the ooey gooey good part.  I find this really works well when you’re at home with little ones.

Caramel Pecan Bars

2 cups gluten-free all-purpose mix*

1/4 cup almond meal*

1/3 cup sucanat*

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup cubed Earth Balance butter

3 tbsp arrowroot

1/3 cup soy milk

1 1/2 cups sucanat*

2/3 cup brown rice syrup

2 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp Earth Balance butter

2 cups roughly chopped pecans

The * symbolizes the changes I made to the original recipe.  I followed the instructions as outlined here .  I only baked mine for 28 minutes and next time I would definitely bake them for longer – the bars in the middle were too runny, but still pretty darn yummy (kind of like runny butter tarts).

I really recommend this recipe (and subscribing to Girlie Girl Army).  It was such a treat.  The bars are very sticky and gooey but everyone loved them. Next time I might try adding chunks of chocolate to the caramel pecan topping. Do you think I have a sweet tooth?