Take Your Favorite Pecan Bars on a Tropical Vacation
Specifically, to a place with an abundance of coconuts! These shortbread pecan bars are sticky, coconutty, caramel-topped perfection and they follow in the tradition of other classic coconut bar recipes that are particularly popular in the South, like 7-layer bars, pecan pie bars, or dream bars. But, they’re also kind of their own thing! We cherry picked our favorite parts of all of those recipes—the buttery shortbread crust, the sweetened condensed milk, and of course the coconut—and created a bar that’s our own sort of dream bar! We love the short ingredient list, and the fact that all of those ingredients are easy to keep around, so you can whip this dessert up just about any old time you feel like it (or need to deliver a tray of treats to a friend, stat!).
6 Pantry Ingredients Are All You Need To Make The Best Pecan Bars Ever!
Loaded with rich, nutty ingredients and of course that divine shortbread crust, these coconut pecan dream bars are well, dreamy! Our pecan bar recipe really puts these six simple ingredients to work so that the effort-to-payoff ratio is easily in your favor. The coconut flakes—use the unsweetened kind—are used in both the shortbread crust and the pecan bar filling, while the sweetened condensed milk is used in both the filling and to make the dulce de leche. Having cans of sweetened condensed milk in the cupboard does make us feel a little bit like a combination of a 1950s housewife and Winnie the Pooh, but it also means that we can make these easy pecan bars any old time we feel like it, so it’s totally worth it. Here are the six ingredients you’ll need to make our pecan bars recipe:
Flour
Butter. We call for salted butter here, which is unusual for baking! But it’s honestly just out of sheer ease. We’re salted butter people—what can we say? You want and need a little salt in the shortbread crust, so if you only have unsalted, add at least 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the shortbread dough before mixing.
Sugar
Coconut flakes
Sweetened condensed milk
Pecans
A Easy Way to Make Dulce De Leche (Which Makes Everything Delicious)
Sometimes referred to as “Mexican caramel”, dulce de leche is a creamy, nutty, rich, sticky, gooey, sweet sauce that’s popular throughout Latin America. It’s mellow and sort of butterscotch-y, and it’s worth noting that a little goes a looooong way. Best of all? It’s a one-ingredient treat! While you can make it from milk and sugar—you’d stir the two together and let them reduce for ages and ages until you end up with caramel—the easiest way (and most popular) is to make it from a can of sweetened condensed milk! Some people cook it directly in the can, but we prefer a slightly safer method. Here’s how to make dulce de leche (and yes, you can do it up to a week ahead of time!) :
Pour a can of condensed milk into a metal pie tin, and cover it with foil.
Make a water bath by setting the pie tin into a baking dish and filling the baking dish with hot water until it comes about halfway up the sides of the metal pie pan.
Bake for 90 minutes at 425°F, adding more water to the water bath as you go along if need be.
You’re done!
How To Make Coconut Pecan Squares
Once you’ve made the dulce de leche—and again, you can make that up to a week ahead of time, the only trick is not eating it all—these pecan bars are a total breeze. Even the dulce de leche is easy to make, it’s just a bit time consuming. Here’s how to make these easy pecan bars:
Make the shortbread crust. Beat together the flour, butter, sugar and coconut flakes until it comes together into a light and fluffy dough.
Press the shortbread dough into a 9X9 baking dish.
Bake the shortbread crust for 30 minutes.
Make the coconut pecan filling! Stir together condensed milk, pecans and coconut flakes.
One more bake! Pour the pecan filling over the baked shortbread crust, and bake the bars for about 20 minutes.
Drizzle with dulce de leche!
And now, the hard part! Let the bars cool completely before cutting them into squares.
Tools You’ll Need
Stand mixer (or a big mixing bowl)
Cooling rack (handy, but not essential)
More Nutty Coconut Recipes To Try
The Best Pecan Bars (Right?!)
Once you realize how insanely high the ROI on these dreamy shortbread pecan bars is, you’ll never be without the ingredients to whip them up! They’re so ideal for meal trains, for last minute hostess gifts—you name it, these bars have no trouble finding happy homes. They can mend fences, lift moods and are easy enough to make with even the littlest of helpers. Try the recipe, and let us know how you like it, OK? Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!
