Paula Deen’s Pecan Pie Muffins Made Even Better

Remember when I was making Banana Bread and messed up on those candied pecans that I wanted to add to the bread? And what to do with that concrete blob of pecans. Make Pecan Pie Muffins of course.

This recipe—the original one anyway—is so easy even a cave man can do it. I just had to say that. That commercial bugs me by the way.

Did I ask, do you like pecan pie? If you do, then you will LOVE these muffins even more. Well, at least I do.

Could one make a more rich, melt in your mouth muffin than these? Why yes, when you add chopped up concrete candied pecans. It’s like the gooey butter/sugar/cinnamon mixture that caramelized over the pecans melted into the muffins causing an explosion of gooey goodness. It is so rich that I can only eat one. Really. Paul Deen’s way, I could eat more than one. My way are really, really rich. But really, really good.

So, I wonder. If I’ve modified a recipe, is it my own? What if two parts of the recipe came from two different people and I had combined them, is it my recipe? Well, I didn’t invent it and wouldn’t have without the recipes of the two, so I’ll credit both.

Cream 1 stick softened butter with ¾ cup packed brown sugar. Add 2 beaten eggs and mix well. Add ½ cup flour and stir until combined. Stir in 1 cup candied chopped pecans (see my version below). Spoon batter into prepared muffin pans. Deen’s book said it makes eight, but I make a full dozen. I’ve made these as little mini muffins too and they are just as good. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Deen suggests serving warm with more butter, but I’m telling you that my version does not need any more butter. The muffin pans had butter in them after I took the muffins out of the pan!

Candied Pecans—see What Katie’s Baking. If you read my banana bread blog, you’ll see I modified these pecans, messed them up and tried again. With the messed up pecans, I added them to this Pecan Pie Muffin recipe.

Regular recipe for Candied Pecans:
1 tablespoon butter melted on medium heat in saucepan. Add 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon along with 1 cup pecans. Mix until coated and sugar starts to stick. Set aside and cool.

Well, I didn’t think my sugar was going to stick as the sugar/cinnamon mixture seemed crumbly, so I decided to add another tablespoon of butter. After I did that, it was apparent that the butter caused the sugar/cinnamon mixture to come off the pecans, so I added another 2 tablespoons of sugar and another ½ cup pecans. I felt like there was enough cinnamon. I stirred for a good five minutes and when it didn’t look like the mixture was going to stick to the pecans any more than what it was, I dumped them into a bowl. When they cooled, I had one big blog of hard candied sugar/cinnamon pecans—that of which I chopped in my food process and used for these muffins.