Pecan Pie Bites

I make my Thanksgiving menu months ahead of the big day, and I thought I had this one worked out ages ago. I planned to make pecan pie cupcakes, but the closer it got to baking time, the less I wanted to make them. It wasn’t because I wasn’t looking forward to eating them—I was just exhausted, and making 36 cupcakes and buttercream frosting from scratch sounded like climbing a mountain. Then I stumbled on this Pecan Pie Bites recipe the night before I was planning to bake, and I went for a last-minute menu change. It was the best idea!

The stress of baking a fresh pecan pie on Thanksgiving is unnecessary. These bites are so simple to whip together with very little forethought. Crescents provide a buttery flaky crust for the classic pecan pie filling. It’s a Thanksgiving miracle.

Recipe Author: Makinze Gore at Delish
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The Ingredients

I usually have a few things on hand, but I had almost everything in my pantry and refrigerator. Yay!

A quick search through my pantry and I found brown cooking spray, sugar, vanilla extract, kosher salt, and pecan pieces. The recipe does call for roughly chopped pecans, and I was planning to buy pecan halves and chop them myself. This saved me a step.

My refrigerator was holding onto some butter, the egg, and a bottle of corn syrup. It ended up there after I opened it, and it was still perfectly good. All I had to do was set it on the counter to warm to room temperature.

The only thing I had to buy was the tube of crescent rolls. This part seemed easy, but it turns out I bought the wrong size. I had no idea crescent rolls come in 8- and 12-ounces. I bought the 12-ounce tube (the “Grands!” label should have clued me in), but the recipe calls for the 8-ounce size. No biggie—it all worked out.

Pecan Pie Bites Ingredients
Pecan pieces, corn syrup, crescent roll dough, brown sugar, egg, vanilla extract, cooking spray, kosher salt, and butter

The Process

This recipe looked so easy in the video and the 5-minute prep time seemed too good to be true. Well… it was. That’s not to say this recipe wasn’t easy! This is how my time was spent:

  • 14 minutes to prep
  • 15 minutes to bake
  • 30 minutes to cool
  • 30 minutes to refrigerate
  • 1 hour 29 minutes total

The dough was the most difficult part, and some of that is on me. I think the shape of the dough I bought was more rectangular than the dough from the video. I noticed that as I rewatched the video a couple of times so I could see how the dough was cut into 24 squares. (Here’s a clearer guide to cutting the dough.)

Crescent roll dough cut into (sort of) squares
Crescent roll dough cut into (sort of) squares

I did it wrong the first time and ended up with 18 pieces. But the dough is forgiving, and I was able to pinch it closed and re-cut it. The pieces were more rectangular than square, but I was able to stretch them a bit as I placed them into the mini muffin tin.

Next up was mixing the filling, and that was super easy. Literally, put everything into a mixing bowl and stir to blend. I used a small spoon to fill each cup, and I ended up with something that looked a lot like the video.

Pecan Pie Bites before baking
Pecan Pie Bites before baking

All the work was done, and it was time to bake my Pecan Pie Bites. I started off at 15 minutes, and that was perfect. Unfortunately, the reality is messier than Pinterest videos, and the filling bubbled over. A lot.

I left the pan cool for 30 minutes, and slowly removed each bite. The baked-on filling was still flexible, and I gently pried off the difficult spots with a paring knife. Tip: Don’t wipe off the extra cooking spray before baking. I did (I was trying to be neat), but it would have helped with the removal situation. I didn’t time this part, but it took me a lot longer than I imagined.

Pecan Pie Bites after baking
Pecan Pie Bites after baking

So how was it?

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These Pecan Pie Bites really are a Thanksgiving miracle! Buttery crust and sticky sweet pecan filling--just like pecan pie with far less work! They were simple to make but not quite as easy as they looked in the video. I had some minor hiccups along the way and they took me a bit longer than the time listed. However, the result was so good that I'm calling them a Pinterest success. They did not last long--we devoured them!!
The Hungry Pinner
The Hungry Pinnerhttps://www.hungrypinner.com
I'm Candice, and I'm The Hungry Pinner. I created this blog to share my love for cooking and my experiences with the MANY recipes I've found on Pinterest over the years. Join me as I blog my way through those recipes to find out if they are worth trying yourself.

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These Pecan Pie Bites really are a Thanksgiving miracle! Buttery crust and sticky sweet pecan filling--just like pecan pie with far less work! They were simple to make but not quite as easy as they looked in the video. I had some minor hiccups along the way and they took me a bit longer than the time listed. However, the result was so good that I'm calling them a Pinterest success. They did not last long--we devoured them!!Pecan Pie Bites