Agave-Sweetened Pecan Pie Bars

As you may know if you've ever read this blog, I have a son who will be 3 in November, and he has never eaten refined cane sugar. We have made a conscious choice to keep him off the stuff as long as we possibly can. It has been surprisingly easy thus far.

Last week as I was baking, my son came up to me and asked me what I was making, and if he could have some. When I told him no, it wasn't for him, he said to me, "Mommy, will you make me something I can eat?" After hearing this twice in the same number of days, I knew I had to make something really special for him.

I pulled out a new book, Baking with Agave Nectar, which I bought recently and had yet to bake anything from. The first recipe that jumped out at me was this one. I love pecan pie, and have been looking for a corn syrup-free version forever. I thought these would be really great with the TWD vanilla ice cream that I was supposed to make last week but hadn't had a chance to, so I made it and sweetened it with agave as well.

These are really simple and incredibly fast bars, and I had high hopes for them going into the oven. These took considerably longer to bake than the recipe - about 30 minutes longer, but they looked delicious coming out, and I was sure I'd found my pecan pie replacement recipe.

The topping was, in fact, heavenly. Sweet, but not tooth-achingly sweet, it tasted just like a traditional pecan pie.

I did not care much for the crust. Before it was baked, it was more like a batter than dough, and the result was a very cakey crust. I'm not really sure why it wasn't just put on more traditional pie crust, but when I make it again - and I definitely will - that is what I will put it on. Or a shortcrust.

In any case, these were a great introduction to a book that I know I will get a lot of use out of.

Oh, and my son absolutely loved them.