Easy Fig Pecan Bars #CreativeCookieExchange

Sticky, chewy, fig pecan bars are the perfect treat with a cup of tea or an ice-cold glass of milk. Baked up in a large pan, this recipe makes enough to share, but they also freeze beautifully so you don’t have to.

Sometimes when I am looking for inspiration, I like to do a recipe search in a foreign language. If it’s one I don’t speak, I’ll use Google Translate first, to find the key words (and the word for recipe!) and off I go down the rabbit hole of an entirely different internet world. It’s quite fascinating. Think about it. That's the world those native speakers inhabit daily.

Even when it’s a language I do speak - English for instance - using the search term “British” or “Australian” along with my key words can reveal recipes I would never otherwise have found because often the same sorts of treats are called completely different things.

For instance, years ago, when we first moved to Australia, I discovered that our US cookie bars, that is, cookies that are baked in one pan and cut into squares or rectangles, are known as slices there. Like our bars, slices come in all flavors and sizes.

This month my Creative Cookie Exchange group is sharing cookies that are great for a bake sale, so my mind immediately went to bars (or slices!) They are so much easier even than drop cookies or roll cookies when you need to bake more than one dozen.

I was feeling flush with fresh fig preserves, having just made a new double batch from my grandmother’s recipe, so I did a quick search for “jam slice” and turned up, I kid you not, 31,700,000 results, most of which seemed to have coconut. So then I tried “jam bars” and got even more results: 68,300,000, most of which seemed to be made with oats. Not that the US bars didn’t have coconut on occasion or that the Australian slices didn’t use oats from time to time, but there is definitely a bias the other way. I find it all most intriguing. Yeah, I know, I know, I’m sad. On the other hand, I made you some excellent fig pecan bars today.

Easy Fig Pecan Bars

After all that searching, what I like to call researching, I ended up adapting a Taste of Home recipe they call Winning Apricot Bars. They are the perfect after school or bake sale treat! Use your favorite preserves or jam if you don’t have fig.


Ingredients
3/4 cup or 170g butter, softened
1 cup or 200g sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups or 250g all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 150g finely chopped pecans
1/2 cup or 65g roughly chopped pecans
1 jar (10 to 12 ounces) fig preserves (or sub your favorite preserves) (about 1 3/4 cups) 528g

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and line a 13x8-in or 33x20cm pan with baking parchment.

My homemade fig preserves have whole figs in them so I used a pair of sharp kitchen scissors to cut them into bits, right in the jar. If you are using jam or fruit preserves in which the fruit is already broken down, you will not need this step.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla.

In a small bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to creamed mixture, beating briefly in between additions and scraping down the bowl.

Fold in the finely chopped pecans.

Press two-thirds (about 530g, if you have a scale) of dough onto the bottom of your prepared baking pan.

Spoon the preserves onto the dough and spread them out evenly.

Mix the roughly chopped pecans into the remaining dough and crumble over the preserves.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown, turning the pan around halfway through to make sure it cooks evenly.

Cool the fig pecan bars completely in pan on a wire rack. Cut into 24 bars to serve.

Enjoy!

• Ricotta Mini Chip Cookies from the Spiced Life
• Butter Cookies with Mocha Frosting from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Easy Fig Pecan Bars from Food Lust People Love
• Cocoa Tahini Cookies with Sesame Crunch from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Anzac cookies from Flours and Frostings

Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board. We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

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