Candied Vanilla Pecans
You know how they say you should bake fresh cookies before an open house so that your house will smell more enticing to potential buyers? I’m going to go ahead and claim that instead of cookies, you should make these Candied Vanilla Pecans. My house smelled AMAZING last night when I made these. They bake for an entire hour, so the wonderful sweet vanilla scent lingers for a good while. I honestly didn’t want to go to bed and miss any of the awesome smelling air in our place.
The pecans were still warm when I went to bed so I didn’t get to try them until today. Let me tell you, they taste better than they smell. This recipe is amazing. If you’re looking for a last minute holiday gift to make or even a snack to take to a holiday potluck, definitely give this simple recipe a shot.
One Year Ago: Toffee Pecan Cookies
Two Years Ago: Pecan Pie
Four Years Ago: Squash Bisque
Candied Vanilla Pecans
Ingredients:
4 cups (~1 lb) pecans
1 egg white
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp water
1 tsp cinnamon
1 heaping tsp sea salt
3/4 cup vanilla sugar (If you don’t have vanilla sugar, substitute regular sugar and increase the vanilla extract to 1 tsp)
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 250 and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix together the sugar, cinnamon and sea salt.
In a large bowl combine the egg white, vanilla and water. Beat the egg until it’s light and frothy. Stir in the pecans and mix well. Pour in the sugar mixture and stir until all the pecans are coated.
Dump the mixture onto your large baking sheet and spread the nuts out evenly.
Bake about 1 hour making sure to stir every 15 minutes and break up any large clumps.
Cool completely on the baking sheet on a wire cooling rack.
Recipe from Miss Lemonie
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
I’ll take any leftovers! They sound amazing. I keep saying dessert recipes with bacon and bookmarking them, but I haven’t tried any yet. Adding this one to the list now too. 🙂
These look so terrific. I love the flavor combinations!
I’m intrigued!
interesting! I have a recipe for chocolate bacon fudge or maybe pb bacon fudge but I’m afraid to try it
The frosting sounds amazing. I honestly still can’t bring myself to get behind bacon in desserts. Maybe someday I’ll try a bacon cupcake if I’m given one though. 🙂 I can only resist so long.
YUM! These look so good! I haven’t tried the bacon / sweet combo yet, but I’m sure I would love it!
This looks delicious but I’ve got to ask….what is a pirate party?
Fun and Fearless – It’s exactly like it sounds… Everyone dresses up as a pirate (or something related – Hubby and I went as Treasure maps last year). They even hire this guy who looks like Captain Jack Sparrow to come and there’s a prize for best costume. One of the best parties of the year!
Sounds great! The problem I’ve seen with bacon is that sometimes it is chewy in cupcakes. That’s not good. I like that this recipe says to cook until crispy. Extra crispy for me!
My favorite candy bar is bacon chocolate!!! I can’t wait to try this 🙂
Wow, those look and sound amazing!
oh yum. after putting bacon in last years cookies this might need to be next 🙂
I’m so curious to try bacon in baked goods, but do you think turkey bacon would work?
Corrine – I’m sure turkey bacon would work if you could get it nice and crispy. I’ve heard that if the bacon isn’t super crispy, it has a really weird chewy texture in baked goods.
Thanks Jen! I’m going to give it a try!
This has just about everything that I would want to go together. Awesome recipe!
This is certianly a unqiue mixture of tastes and textures, but it comes together nicely. Definatly a must try!
Chocolate..caramel…bacon…PERFECTION.
I am infatuated with the perfect smoky/salty addition of bacon into sweet baked goods. So delicious. Of course, I’m kind of a fan of adding bacon into just about anything.
Great pics, def wanna try these out!
Sorry the cupcakes didn’t turn out like you wanted. Have you ever tried the bacon/chocolate cupcake at Cherry Bomb Bakery in Brighton? They are fantastic!