These little “gems” are a sweet treat! The pecan diamond cookie bars have a cookie base, along with a caramel layer and a pecan topping that is both soft and chewy. The cookie dough is rich, and because it’s a bit on the sticky side, it makes it easy to just pat into the pan instead of rolling out your dough. Just make sure that you smooth out your dough as even as you can in your pan before baking it. In doing so, the base of your cookies will all be the same size, so when you cut your diamond shapes, they will look beautiful when displayed on your cookie platter.
These cookies also have honey in them and a handy little trick when measuring honey is to rinse your measuring cup out with a little bit of cooking oil first, then the honey comes right out and does not stick to the measuring cup, and you get a more accurate measurement.
These are great to serve during the holidays. Just make them ahead of time and it’s one less thing to worry about when you are preparing your holiday dinner. Just put your “diamonds” in a container with a layer of waxed paper in between the layers to keep them from sticking together.
Pecan Diamond Cookie Bars
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 2 eggs
- 4 1/2 cups flour all-purpose
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/8 tsp salt
For the Pecan Topping
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup honey
- 4 1/2 cups pecans chopped
- 1/4 cup whipping cream
Instructions
For the Cookies
- In a large mixing bowl, combine butter, sugar and shortening until well blended.
- Mix in eggs and beat until just blended.
- Add remaining ingredients and mix just until combined.
- Line a 10 1/2 X 15 1/2 jelly roll pan with parchment paper and add pastry. Pat to fill surface of pan completely and use a fork to poke randomly on pastry’s surface.
- Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven.
For the Pecan Topping
- In a medium size saucepan, add butter, brown sugar, sugar and honey.
- Bring to a boil over low heat and boil for 3 minutes.
- Do not stir during this time.
- Remove from heat. Add pecans and whipping cream, stirring until well combined.
- Spread pecan mixture on pastry and bake for 35 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool.
- Once cooled, cut into diamond shapes.