Maple Pecan Blondies

These maple pecan blondies use my favorite browned butter blondie as the base. Then it’s piled high with salted maple caramel sauce and pecans!

These maple pecan blondies are the bar I turn to when I want something rich, a little sophisticated, and completely unfussy to put together. The combination of brown butter, brown sugar, and real maple syrup produces a blondie with actual depth, not just sweetness.

If you are looking for more delicious maple desserts check out my maple cake with maple frosting. Let’s not forget about these bars, cousins of the pecan pie bar!

Ingredients & Substitutions

• All-Purpose Flour
• Baking Powder
• Kosher Salt
• Unsalted Butter: Browned in the pan before mixing, which drives off moisture and develops the nutty, toasty notes that make this blondie more than just sweet. For more brown butter recipes, check out these brown butter brownies!
• Light Brown Sugar: You can use dark brown sugar if that’s what you have on hand.
• Eggs: Bind the batter and contribute to the chewy, slightly dense pull of a properly baked blondie.
• Vanilla Extract
• Pecans: Toasting the pecans is the move here. Raw pecans lack the depth that toasted ones bring, and the contrast of the crunchy nut against the fudgy blondie is what makes each bite interesting.
• Maple Syrup: I use pure Vermont maple syrup. They have changed the rating system, but I use what used to be “Grade B,” now “Grade A: dark amber color and robust flavor.” It has the best flavor and is thicker than lower-grade options. You can also use “Grade A: Very Dark and Strong Flavor, but it is generally costly and difficult to find.
• Heavy Cream (caramel): Brings the caramel together and gives it a pourable, silky consistency that sets into a soft layer over the blondie. Do not substitute half-and-half, which will produce a thinner caramel that may not set properly.
• Fleur de Sel: Sprinkle it on top just before the caramel sets. The fleur de sel provides a finishing crunch and those bright mineral pops that keep the bars from feeling one-note.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations on This Maple Pecan Blondie

• Change the nut! You can make these with peanuts, walnuts, macadamia nuts, or even cashews! But if you are looking to use cashews, you should try these cashew caramel pretzel blondies
• Add some flavor. Replace a tablespoon or two of the heavy cream with some rum, bourbon, or brandy!
• Change the base. Move this maple caramel topping to the top of these one bowl brownies or pour on top of the cooked base from this carmelita recipe.

Professional Tips

• Do not rush browning the butter. Keep the heat at medium and swirl the pan consistently. The butter will foam, then go quiet, then the milk solids will begin to turn golden and smell nutty. Pulling it too early means you miss the flavor development entirely.
• Watch the maple caramel closely. The syrup will look thin and barely change for the first several minutes, then it will coat the back of the spoon and pull away in threads. That shift happens fast, and if you walk away at that point, you will overcook it. I learned this the hard way after one batch that set up more like maple candy than caramel.
• Cool the blondie completely before pouring the caramel. A warm base will cause the caramel to absorb into the top rather than setting into a distinct layer.
• Chill before cutting. Refrigerating for a full hour allows the caramel to firm enough to slice cleanly. If you cut too early, the caramel will drag, and the bars will not hold their edges.

How to Make Maple Pecan Blondie

Start with the blondie base, so it has time to cool completely before you pour the caramel over the top.

Step 1: Preheat the oven and prepare the pan. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a 13×9-inch metal baking pan with parchment paper, leaving enough overhang on the sides to lift the bars out cleanly after chilling.

Step 2: Whisk the dry ingredients. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Step 3: Brown the butter. Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat, swirling the pan several times a minute. You are looking for the foam to subside, the butter to turn a deep golden color, and small brown bits to cling to the bottom of the pan with a nutty, almost toasty aroma. Transfer it immediately to a medium bowl to stop the cooking.

The brown bits at the bottom of the pan are the goal. Those are the milk solids that carry the flavor. Make sure to scrape them from the pot. They hold all the flavor.

Step 4: Beat in the brown sugar. Add the packed light brown sugar to the warm brown butter and beat with an electric mixer until well combined. The mixture will look like wet sand and feel slightly grainy, 2 to 3 minutes.

Just like these peanut butter cup blondies, you can make this by hand in a bowl with a whisk!

Step 5: Add eggs and vanilla, then the dry ingredients. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until the mixture is fluffy and lightened, about 2 minutes. Add the dry ingredients and beat until smooth. The batter will be very thick, thicker than most brownie batters, which is completely normal.

Step 6: Spread the batter and bake. Using an offset spatula, spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. It takes a little patience to get it into the corners. Bake at 350°F until the top is golden brown, and a tester inserted into the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 20 to 25 minutes. Start checking at 20. Let the blondie cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before moving on.

Step 7: Toast the pecans. Spread the chopped pecans on a sheet pan and toast in the 350°F oven until the nutty aroma wafts through your kitchen, about 10 to 12 minutes. Toss them every few minutes and stay close. Pecans have enough natural fat that they go from perfectly toasted to burned faster than almost any other nut.

Step 8: Cook the maple syrup into caramel. Pour the maple syrup into a deep, heavy-bottomed pot. Bring it to a boil over medium heat and let it boil gently for about 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes with a heatproof spatula to keep the bubbles manageable. As it cooks, you will notice it starts to coat the back of the spatula and cool quickly into a caramel-like consistency when it drips off. It will look and behave like candy at the softball stage.

You can pre-boil the heavy cream and butter mixture, as I do in my salted caramel sauce, to help stabilize the emulsion.

Step 9: Add the butter, cream, and salt. Stir in the butter until completely melted, then add the heavy cream while stirring constantly. It will not bubble up dramatically the way a sugar caramel does, but it is still very hot, so stay attentive. Add the salt and stir to combine.

Tip: Keep the heat under the pot low once you add the cream if the mixture seems to be tightening up too fast before the butter is fully incorporated.

Step 10: Fold in the pecans and pour over the blondie. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the toasted pecans until every piece is coated. Pour the pecan caramel over the completely cooled blondie and spread it into an even layer with an offset spatula, working quickly before it sets.

Step 11: Refrigerate, then cut and finish. Transfer the pan to the refrigerator and chill for at least 1 hour. Once set, lift the whole slab out using the parchment overhang, place it on a cutting board, and cut into bars. Sprinkle each bar with fleur de sel just before serving. The caramel layer will be firm and glossy, and the fleur de sel will catch on the surface without dissolving into it.

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

These blondies deliver everything I want from a bar dessert: chewy centers, crisp edges, and that maple-pecan caramel flavor! Be sure to check out my other dessert recipes or you should make the best pecan pie recipe next!