I’m not sure how I ran across this recipe, but I love pecans and it looked simple and easy so I thought I’d give it a try.

If you’re making your own pecan flour (i.e. toasting the pecans and then grinding) this recipe is going to take a little longer. I don’t keep pecan flour on hand so I made my own and the cooling process takes a little time. If you try and grind the pecans before they’re cooled it can turn into a sort of nut butter and you don’t want that. I popped mine in the freezer and that helped cool it a little but it still took a while.

My recommendation would be to brown the butter while your pecans are cooling since it will also need to cool. If you time it right your butter and pecans will be cool generally around the same time (ish) and then you’re ready to go.

Once the pecans were cooled I popped them in the food processor and ground them up until they were finely chopped, making sure to add in the sugar and salt. It won’t be as fine as flour so just keep that in mind but it will be okay.

When your pecans are ground and the butter is cooled then it’s time to whip the egg whites. I feel like it took longer than I expected to whip the eggs whites and I had to get my husband to weigh in on whether they were done because I kept second guessing myself. Set these aside and then mix together the egg yolks, browned butter, and vanilla.

Add this to the pecan/sugar/salt mixture. Then you’ll slowly add the egg whites until everything is incorporated but do it in batches and slowly to avoid deflating the egg whites. Pour it into a greased pan and bake!

As you can see by my picture the top of my cake has the imprint of the cooling rack so if you’re not planning on topping this cake with something you might flip it around. I was taking this to work so I left it untopped, but I wish I had done that just so it looked a little less plain.

Taste wise it has a great pecan flavor and isn’t too sweet. It was nice by itself but I really think a little whipped topping and maybe some berries would have been great. I’d make it again and definitely do that next time!

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	8
Taste	10
Visual	9

Recipe Used: Smitten Kitchen