Sweet Alabama Pecan Bread Recipe

Sweet Alabama pecan bread is not a yeast bread and not a loaf. It is a chewy pecan bar, close to a blondie, baked in a 9x13-inch pan. Whisk a cup each of white sugar, brown sugar and oil with four eggs, stir in a cup and a half of self-rising flour and two cups of toasted pecans, and bake at 350°F for 30 to 35 minutes.

Why it is called Alabama pecan bread

The name points to the nut. The pecan is a hickory native to the Southern United States, and Alabama named it the official state nut in 1982. The recipe is a home recipe without a known author, so there is no original to compare it with.

"Bread" is used here the way it is in cornbread or banana bread: something baked in a pan and cut. For a yeast bread, see the Trader Joe's brioche. A square, a sixteenth of the pan, comes to about 370 calories by USDA figures.

Recipe

Sweet Alabama Pecan Bread

A chewy Southern pecan bar baked in a 9x13-inch pan — white and brown sugar, oil, eggs, self-rising flour and toasted pecans, stirred in one bowl. Sixteen squares.

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Prep

15 min

Cook

40 min

Total

1 hr 25 min

Serves

16

Cuisine

Southern

Ingredients

• 2 cups chopped pecans
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and toast them for 7 to 8 minutes, until fragrant. Let them cool.
2. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan and line the bottom with parchment.
3. Whisk both sugars with the oil, the eggs and the vanilla in a large bowl for 1 minute, until smooth and glossy.
4. Stir in the flour just until no dry streaks remain, then fold in the pecans. The batter is thick.
5. Spread the batter in the pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is golden and crackled and a toothpick pushed into the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs.
6. Let the bread cool in the pan for 30 minutes before cutting it into 16 squares.

Nutrition

Calories:

370

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

Self-rising flour, and what to use without it

Self-rising flour, in the words of King Arthur Baking, is flour with the baking powder and a bit of salt already added. It is the only leavening and the only salt in this recipe.

To replace it, the same page gives the formula: 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. For this recipe that is 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder and a slightly rounded 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

Chewy in the middle, crackled on top

• Whisk the sugar with the eggs for a full minute. The dissolved sugar bakes into the thin, shiny crust on top.
• Do not overbake. The bars are done when the middle still looks soft. They set as they cool. Baked until a toothpick comes out clean, they turn dry.
• Oil, not butter. Oil keeps the crumb moist for days. Melted butter can replace it and gives a firmer bar with a butter taste.

Old-fashioned sweet Alabama pecan bread with cinnamon

The cinnamon version adds 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the flour. Other additions in the same spirit: 1/2 cup of shredded coconut, or 1/2 cup of chocolate chips folded in with the pecans.

Toasting the pecans first is worth the eight minutes. Raw pecans stay soft and mild inside the bar.

Five days, well wrapped

The bars keep five days in a closed container at room temperature and freeze for three months. They are served plain, or warm with vanilla ice cream.

Other desserts baked in a pan on this site are the sweet potato pie and the cheesecake dump cake.