Pecans + sugar

Today is a very exciting day for me because in less than 24 hours I will be on an airplane heading for British Columbia :D. That's a west coast province in Canada, if I have an international readers who don't know Canada very well. I'm going to visit a friend and I'll take lots of photos to document my trip for the blog.
Over the weekend was Easter and I know I've mentioned before im not religious in any sense but I do like to take these opportunities to practice my baking. Normally I make a savoury dish as well as a sweet but I wasn't feeling inspired to cook. I ended up making vegan pecan squares from Chloe's cookbook.  They were fun for me to cook because I've never heated up sugar to make a sauce before and it was fun to try that for the first time. I doubled the recipe for the "goo" of the pecan square because there didn't seem to be enough. The squares ended up tasting really sweet and if I were to make them again, I would make a lot of changes to the recipe. The base of the squares are shortbread cookies, I would change it into a vegan pie crust. Second thing I would change is the sugar goo, the recipe called for three different kinda of sugar and it really came though in the taste. Next time I would experiment with agave to see if I could cut the sweetness.

I experimented with two different shapes. I made a pecan circle by lining mini cupcake tins with a cutout piece of parchment paper. 

Ease of recipe: 5/5
These square were very easy to make. It has really simple ingredients and a few steps, the hardest part is waiting for the squares to set in the fridge.

Taste: 2/5
This category lost points because of the sweetness. The flavour of the square is very delicious and I've eaten way to many over the past few days but the sweetness is overwhelming. I suggest not using the cookbooks recipe and making one yourself.

Friends/Family thoughts: 2/5
My friends and family thought they were too sweet. My Grandma said they tasted better out of the fridge for a bit. 

Likely hood to remake recipe: 4/5
I would remake this recipe again but changes would definitely need to be make. 

Overall Cooking Experience: 4/5

Bonus Casey Points: 1/1
I had the pecan sugar goo all over my fingers and Casey enjoyed licking it off. I guess it wasn't too sweet for Casey :).


Final: 18/25

I was disappointed with these squares because I love pecan treats. I have never attempted a pecan dessert and I was very excited to try it. It's not a complete loss because now I can make more tarts until the recipe tastes perfect.  I hope my friends and family don't mind being taste testers...