Salted Caramel Baklava Bites

I hope you all had a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa, happy holidays, or just a happy day off from work!

Cannot believe the holidays have come and gone already. I say this every year, but this year just flew by! I am not ready to take down our holiday tree just yet.  It's just so pretty with all the lights on in the dark. Even as I am typing up this post, I have the tree on and am sitting in the dark with the fireplace on.

I wanted to quickly share this recipe because one, I haven't posted something in a while, and two, it was just such a great, quick dessert, and I really wanted to share it with all of you.

This recipe came about completely on a whim because what I thought was a friends potluck dinner tonight, was actually a friends potluck lunch! I went from having all day to make and bring my dessert as promised, to a little over an hour before we had to leave to make it to lunch. My first reaction was to stop by Whole Foods and pick something up, but then I felt bad. I promised a homemade dessert, and I was going to bring one!

I threw on my sweats, hurried off to HEB, and debated between puff pastry or phyllo, and pastry cream or nuts on my drive there. I picked up phyllo shells and nuts. Figured I would make something like baklava with a drizzle of caramel.

If you need a quick dessert, or realize you need to be somewhere at the last minute, these are great to take in hand and share with people you like.

Salted Caramel Baklava Bites

Salted Caramel:
1/2 cup sugar
water
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Baklava Bites:
2 packages pre-baked phyllo shells (15 per pack)
1 cup walnut chips
1 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbs honey
1 teaspoon rose water
zest one orange
juice of half an orange
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350.

For the caramel, in a small sauce pan, melt down sugar and a couple drops of water. Keep stirring until the sugar melts and become a dark amber color. Add the butter and stir until butter is melted and combined. Turn off the heat, and take the sauce pan off of the stove.  Add the heavy cream, while stirring. The mixture will bubble, but keep stirring until the cream is incorporated and the caramel is smooth.  Add the vanilla and salt and stir until combined.  Let the caramel cool down to a drizzle consistency.

While the caramel cools down, combine the walnuts, pecans, brown sugar, honey, rose water, zest, and orange juice in a bowl.  Stir to coat the nuts fully.

On a large baking sheet, lay out the shells and fill with the nut mixture. Drizzle in a bit of melted butter into each shell.  Pop into preheated oven for 15 minutes.

Let the baklava bites cool a bit until the phyllo is crispy again. Drizzle on the salted caramel.

Enjoy!

Pecan Caramel Tart

Still no pumpkin recipe. Sorry, and, you're welcome, depending on how you feel about pumpkin and pumpkin food things.

The season of lots of eating and holiday mayhem is upon us! It's time to bring out the stretchy pants (aka leggings), sweatpants, and large sweaters, cozy up on the couch with a mug of something hot and a plate of pie. I seriously love pie.

The crust is my favorite part of pie, and I count tarts in the realm of pies because there is a crust, therefore, I seriously also love tarts.

This year, I will be taking part in four Thanksgiving feasts all before the official turkey day. Thankfully the bathing suits I picked up for my trip to Cancun next week all have strategically placed ruching on them to hide my food baby. One piece bathing suits for the win!

For Thanksgiving feast number two, which was at work, I signed up to bring a pecan caramel tart. Although I love me some pie, pecan is towards the end of my list, mostly because I am not a fan of the gloopy corn syrup filling.  I usually just eat the crust and the pecans. This tart gets rid of that gloopiness with only combining pecans and caramel.

I tweaked my cardamom shortbread crust recipe from my Sunshine Lemon Tart by adding a dash of cinnamon, toasted up some pecans, and made a batch of caramel.  All combined to make a beautiful, buttery, crunchy, caramel-y dessert.

Homemade caramel is super easy and can be done without a candy thermometer. I mean really, who has those? And is it different from a regular cooking thermometer? I figure my caramel turns out just dandy without a thermometer, so it's one tool I currently do not need. Homemade caramel takes some patience because the sugar goes through stages, but then some magic happens and the sugar turns into a gorgeous brown color and you're like, whoa, I think I just made caramel.  This caramel is my go to. I have used it to drizzle on grilled bananas, ice cream, baked into chocolate chip cookies, and now, this tart. So keep this in your cooking apron because it is one handy treat.

Pecan Caramel Tart

1 cardamom shortbread crust (I added a dash of cinnamon to the dry ingredients)
3 cups pecans
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons water
4 tablespoons salted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons brown sugar
Demerara/Turbinado sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Prepare tart pan by buttering or using cooking spray to coat.  Press in the shortbread crust into the bottom and flutes of the pan.  Use powdered sugar to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands. You can also use the back of a spoon to press down.

Poke holes into the crust with a fork and let it rest in the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

As the crust rests, lay out the pecans into a single layer on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 10-15 minutes.  Or, if you smell the pecans, take them out to cool.  They are letting you know they are ready!

Once the pecans are out of the oven, pop in the shortbread crust and bake for 15 minutes.  Let cool. If you are good at timing everything, you can toast the pecans and bake the crust at the same time!

As the pecans toast and/or the shortbread crust cools, prepare the caramel.  In a medium sauce pan, add the sugar and water.  Now you will stir and stir until the sugar goes from granulated, to liquid, back to granulated, and into melting. Once the sugar goes from liquid back to granulated, you must constantly stir and break up clumps. I prefer to use a whisk at this step. Don't worry if you have clumps, but try to break them up as best as you can.  Once there are minimal clumps, and your sugar has turned a dark amber color, add butter, and stir/whisk in vigorously.

Take the pan off of the heat and slowly add in your whipping cream while stirring.  Make sure to fully combine the cream in.  Add in your vanilla extract.  At this point you can let the caramel cool into a nice, thick caramel sauce and place into a jar for use. Now give yourself a high five.

For the purpose of this tart, place the caramel on low heat to keep the caramel runny.

Lower the temperature of the oven down to 350 degrees once the pecans are toasted and crust is baked.

In a mixing bowl, combine toasted pecans, brown sugar, and all of the caramel. Combine fully.  Pour into the cooled shortbread crust. Sprinkle with a little Demerara/Turbinado sugar to give it some sparkle. Place in oven and bake 20-25 minutes, until nice and bubbly.

Let the tart completely cool down before popping out of the tart pan.  And then take a moment to marvel in the fact that you made the best dessert this holiday season has tasted.

Enjoy!

*Cooking tip*
If the caramel is still clumpy after adding the heavy cream and vanilla, cook over low heat and stir. Low heat will help the remaining sugar clumps to melt.