Butter Pecan Squares

One of my favorite cookbooks is my Lion House Desserts cookbook. The Lion House is a restaurant in Salt Lake City that serves delicious food. One nice thing for me is that all the recipes are created at a higher altitude so I have never had any problems, especially with cakes. More importantly, all the recipes I have tried are divine and all the ones that I haven't look to be. This cookie is no exception. However, a true tragedy occurred in the making of these cookies. They call for chocolate chips and when I went to get some from my store room I was out! All I had was one package of mini chocolate chips. I must confess, this never happens. I buy chocolate chips by the case, but I guess in my pregnant/post pregnant state I didn't notice I was running low. Now I have to go get more, hopefully they are on sale. That said, the mini chips worked just as good, it just distributed the chocolate more evenly throughout the cookie, which isn't all bad. I should note that we were ready to eat the cookies before they were completely cool so the chocolate is not completely set and they were delicious!

Butter Pecan Squares (printer friendly)

1/2 C butter, softened
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C flour
1/4 tsp xanthan gum
2 C milk chocolate chips
3/4 C chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees and grease and 8-inch square baking pan.
2. In a medium mixing bowl cream butter, sugar, egg & vanilla together until light & fluffy. Add the flour and blend in. Stir in 1 C chocolate chips and 1/2 C pecans. Spread batter into prepared dish and bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle the remaining 1 C chocolate chips on top of the cookies. Wait for the chips to melt and spread evenly over the cookies with a knife. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 C pecans. cool, then cut into squares. makes 16.