✨✨It’s May already? How is it that when you’re waiting for something time seems to ...

... tick by so slowly, then you reach the date you’ve been waiting for and it seems to have flown by? Time is such a strange thing.✨✨
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✨✨Well, it’s finally here and I know for many places it’s sort of the threshold for slowly returning to “normal” life. So obviously these last many weeks have given us all some fresh perspective and given a chance to do things we wouldn’t usually do. Personally, I’ve been able to catch up on a million little blog tasks that I’ve been putting off. One of those was to finish posting all of my accumulated recipes that somehow never made it on the blog.✨✨
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✨✨This recipe is actually one of them. I had planned to share it last Fall and totally forgot about if I’m being honest. It’s only one of many but posting it now is making me feel super productive. ;P✨✨

--Frosted Maple Pecan Bars (Vegan+GF)--
Maple and pecans are a match made in heaven and these bars prove it!

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings 16 bars

--Ingredients--
2 cups gluten free all-purpose flour blend
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup coconut palm sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon pure maple extract
1/2 cup pecan butter (you can sub almond or cashew butter)
1/2 cup coconut cream *see note
2/3 cup pecans, roughly chopped
Frosting:
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup pecan butter (you can sub almond or cashew butter)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

--Instructions--
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease an 8x8 inch baking pan with oil.
Add the coconut sugar, maple extract, maple syrup, and nut butter to a medium mixing bowl and stir until smooth. Add in the salt, baking powder, and flour and mix until combined. Use a spatula to stir in about half of the pecans and reserve the rest for the top.

Scrape the mixture out into pan and spread evenly and place in oven to bake for 20 - 25 minutes until lightly browned on top. Remove from oven and cool for about 5 minutes before cutting.

--Frosting:--
Stir together the ingredients for the icing in a small bowl until smooth. Once bars are cooled, spread frosting over top and sprinkle with remaining pecans.

--Recipe Notes--
If you have trouble finding coconut cream at your local grocery store it's completely fine to use full-fat coconut milk and scrape the cream off of the top. Just be sure that it's cold enough to separate.

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