Baking is a great way to bring your family together, and almost everyone loves an occasional sweet treat. Teaching your children or grandchildren your favorite candy pecans recipe — and how to get them to come out just right with your own special secret ingredient — will form lasting memories for both you and your loved ones.
It’s also wonderful when they bring new ideas for things they want you to help them make.
If you avoid bulk bins and stick to packages labeled gluten-free for both the pecans and the spices, candied pecans are an easy way to make a gluten-free treat where you don’t feel like you’re having to juggle substitutions.
My Favorite Spiced Candied Pecans Recipe
This is my own super simple recipe for candied pecans which can be adjusted to fit your tastes, mood or the season.
Ingredients
2 cups pecan halves
1/4 cup Smart Balance (or butter)
1/4 cup brown sugar
Optional Spices
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
or
1 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice
or
1/8 teaspoon of cayenne or chipotle powder
Directions
1. Using a skillet toast pecans in Smart Balance (or butter) over low heat for 15 minutes or until they are lightly browned.
2. Remove skillet from heat. Sprinkle sugar and any spices evenly over the pecans while still in the skillet. Stir well until pecans are coated.
3. Spread the candied pecan mixture on a baking sheet lined with foil and bake for 10 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once cooled store candied toasted pecans in an airtight container.
Reviews For Candied Pecans Recipes
One of the best ways to find a recipe worth your time and effort is to go online to a recipe site that has a large number of user reviews that are current.
Take a look at the recipe and see if it sounds like something that would appeal to your taste and then spend a little time looking at the positive and negative reviews. You might pay less attention to the overall score of the reviews and more to the trends within the actual written reviews.
Try to find ones that have specific praise or criticism so that you develop a good idea of exactly what the reviewers liked or didn’t like about the recipe. When searching recipe sites, always use “gluten-free”, but also explore terms like: candied pecans, candy coated pecans, sugared pecans, spiced pecans or pecan pralines.
There are a number of places to find good recipes for candied pecans or even other candied nuts. You don’t have to restrict yourself to gluten-free oriented sites because the core ingredients for this tasty treat should be naturally gluten-free. Of course, double-check the ingredient list before you invest too much time with it. Some people might use some kind of flour to bring a crumble to their pecans. Avoid those recipes.
Some popular sites include All Recipes, Epicurious or Food Network. Often times if you read recipe reviews you’ll find enhancements that prove to be helpful, particularly when it comes to making sure they’re gluten-free.
This treat is so easy to make that you don’t need to risk gluten exposure to buy candied pecans. Plus making them yourself allows you to have control over the ingredients so you can make adjustments for additional dietary restrictions (dairy-free, for example), or simply so you can personalize them with your own favorite spices.
Test Drive The Recipe
It’s a good idea to try a few different recipes, and then give the recipe you choose a little test drive to see if it continues to come out the way you like it. Getting any type of toasted pecans to turn out just right every single time can take a little practice. If you’re teaching your son or daughter to bake, you might want to try several different recipes all at once and do a taste off at the same time.
This can be a fun afternoon of baking that helps them learn some baking skills and also how rehearsing a skill will make for a more thoughtful and successful outcome. And there’s lots of fun to be had in comparing the final results of all that hard effort while you’re learning how to make candied pecans: getting to eat several different types of candied pecans!
Once you find a base recipe for candied pecans you can modify it to highlight certain flavors or you can make a few different types for different uses from sweet glazed pecans with cinnamon to spicy candied pecans. Different types of sugared pecans and cinnamon pecans work well for baking things like muffins while spiced pecans can be a fun for salads. Of course, they’re yummy on their own, too! Get creative with them!
How To Toast Pecans In The Oven
Toasting pecans in the oven is incredibly easy. All you need is a baking sheet, pecans and an oven or even a toaster oven.
Preheat the oven to 325 or 350 degrees F. If your oven runs a little hot toast them at 325 degrees as they can easily burn with too high of heat.
Spread the pecans in a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet. For best results place them on a rack in the middle of the oven. Bake them for 10-12 minutes or until they are slightly browned and they are emitting a nice, toasty aroma.
Don’t over bake them as they can easily burn. They will continue to toast a little even after you take them out of the oven.
When toasting pecans in a toaster oven preheat the toaster oven to 325 degrees and toast them for about 8-10 minutes. Keep a close eye on them because they can burn easier in a toaster oven because the coils are closer.
Oven toasting pecans is the best way to get uniform results, and to me it is the easiest way to toast pecans.
Wrapping It Up
Take a little time and investigate more than one candied pecans recipe next holiday season, and you’ll be able to add them to your gift plates for friends and family. Or simply enjoy them throughout the year.