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 love the idea of perfect party minicakes!! They look delish! Great job! That flour picture is so funny. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that – flour on the counter, on my KA, in my hair, on my face!
Clara @ I♥food4thought
Yum! Love the raspberry/lemon combo, and the mini cakes are adorable 🙂
Well done – what an innovative variation. They look so cute!
I can totally relate to the slippery effect.
Your cake looks beautiful!
You did a lovely job on all your mini cakes.
Natalie @ Gluten A Go Go
Adorable! Your KA and mine would be best friends. ‘Chuck’ is always filthy. Poor guy. He gets cleaned up, just to be coated again. 😉
How cute! Making mini-cakes is a great idea. Next time I make this cake I will try that, I still have a HUGE cake in the fridge I need to eat :-/
Cheers!
Great idea on the mini cakes. They are really cute. Great job. To the next challenge we go.
beautifully done!!! love it!!!
I love the little cakes! Plus the raspberries! Yummy!
The mini cakes look really amazing!
The minicakes are wonderful! Now, you’ll need my address to send one…Libby 😉
Love the idea of the mini cakes, that’s so adorable!
Mini-cakes are definitely more work than one large cake! They’re so cute though.
What a cute idea! They look adorable!
I love desserts in miniature and your mini cakes look beautiful. I think I will most definitely be making mini cakes sometime in the near future – thank you for the wonderful idea!
~gail
I’m loving the mini versions! The cake looks fantastic. Mmmmm!
I made mini ones too. I hate to tell you but it is way easier to frost a whole cake than mini ones. 🙂
Looks great.
Beautiful!! You did a gorgeous job :O)
These individual cakes look pretty…well done!
Really cute idea to make individual cakes, I love that. Great job!
I adore your minicakes. V lovely.
j
Oh! the minicakes are just the best idea ever. I probably should have done that with my oh-so flat cakes. How great.
Mini cakes -what a great idea! I think I’m going to have to try that here pretty soon. Looks like a delicious lot of fun. Especially the part where you get to eat the scraps. I think this cake was some of the best I’ve had.
What cute little mini cakes! Aren’t things just better when they’re mini?
Great work!
I love the little cakes and the picture with the raspberry and lemon zest is so enticing!
Perfect!
xoxo
Gabi
Another messy baker here! And I love the mini cakes – I’m nice to see its as low-tech as cutting circles out of larger pieces rather than trying to bake a bunch of cakes in miniature pans.
Jen,
Your little cakes are gorgeous! I too love swiss buttercream … congratulations on a job well done!
wow, that takes some patience, putting all those cakes together! They are just the cutest though. ~ JMom
so petite and cute!