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These grain-free and gluten-free mini caramel pecan tarts couldn’t be any easier and are the perfect end to Thanksgiving dinner!
In my last two gluten-free recipes, I used oats and oat flour but for these mini caramel pecan tarts, I wanted to incorporate some nuts and nut flour for an ultra-nutty treat. The result is a crust that’s very similar to a graham cracker crust, though a little softer.
While you certainly can use pecans in the crust, I opted for walnuts as they’re much cheaper where I live. The primary taste in the crust is cinnamon so I don’t feel like I missed out on anything by not using pecans. The only downside to this crust is that it’s not suitable for fillings that require baking. Even with chilling, pre-baking and an egg white wash, the baked fillings I tried leaked through. Grain-free crusts can be finicky like that, which is why I came up with this easy no-bake caramel filling.
I have to admit, I’m quite possibly the world’s worst caramel maker. I attempted and failed at 7 different caramel recipes before I found this one that’s incredibly easy. There’s no caramelizing of sugar, which I think is key for those of us with caramel issues. You simply mix everything together and let it simmer for 8 minutes. I’ve made it a few times now, with each time a success, so I’m confident that anyone can make these cute little mini caramel pecan tarts!
I originally made these in six 4.25″ mini tart pans and then realized that people probably don’t want to eat such a huge serving of caramel and nuts after a heavy Thanksgiving dinner. The tarts looked amazing but weren’t practical unless you cut each tart into 4 pieces, which kind of defeats the purpose of mini tarts, doesn’t it?
If you don’t want to bother with making them as tiny tarts in a muffin pan, I’m pretty sure a 9″ tart pan would work. Just bake the crust until nicely browned and follow the rest of the recipe! Should you not have almond flour on hand, you can use another type of finely ground nut flour. I tried using a total of 2 1/4 cups of walnuts instead of using a mix of almond flour and walnuts, but the texture was much better with the latter. If this gluten-free crust isn’t your speed, you can use whatever tart crust you’d like or make them into bars using the crust recipe in Jamie’s chocolate caramel shortbread bars.
Not feeding a crowd? You can easily halve this recipe for only 9 mini tarts. And if it’s just the two of you, try my gluten-free apple crumbles for two.
Gluten-Free Mini Caramel Pecan Tarts
Ingredients:
For the crust:
1 1/4 cups almond flour or almond meal
1 cup pecans or walnuts
4 teaspoons coconut flour*, sifted if lumpy
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup light or dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
For the filling:
3/4 cup tightly packed dark brown sugar
2/3 cup whipping cream
7 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/8 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups chopped pecans
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two muffin pans with 18 muffin liners.
2. Prepare the crust. Place all the crust ingredients in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the S-blade and pulse for 15 seconds or until there are no large chunks of nuts left. The nuts should be 1/8" or smaller in size.
Press 20 grams, about a rounded tablespoon, of dough onto the bottom of the each liner. Try to press it in the nooks and crannies of the muffin liner.
3. Bake for 7 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for at least 20 minutes while preparing the rest of the recipe. Don't skimp on the cooling time or the caramel may leak through.
4. Place the chopped pecans on a baking sheet and roast for 4-6 minutes or until starting to smell toasty. They burn quickly so keep a close eye on them. Remove from the oven.
5. Prepare the caramel. Heat the sugar, cream, butter, vanilla and salt in a heavy bottom saucepan (do not use non-stick) over medium heat.
6. Stir until combined and then simmer for 8 minutes. Do not stir. If needed, tilt the pan to redistribute the mixture.
7. Remove from the heat. The caramel will be quite thin at this point. Let it cool for 20 minutes or until considerably thickened and just barely pourable. Stir in the nuts and then spoon about 2 tablespoons of caramel pecan mixture onto the top of each baked crust.
8. Place the pans in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours or until the caramel has firmed up.
Serve cold or at room temperature. These can be left at room temperature for 8 hours. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
Notes:
*There isn't a direct substitute for coconut flour. If you don't have it on hand, I recommend trying a different crust recipe.
Caramel adapted from Chocolate Nut and Caramel Shortbread Tart.
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I just made these in place of Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving. My caramel did not thicken at all and I did not sub anything. Not sure what happened. I put it back on the stove and brought it to a soft ball temp of 134, stirred in the nuts and spooned it on the crusts. Worked perfect! I did use the metallic cupcake liners and they came off just fine. One less thing to do Thanksgiving afternoon. Thanks for the great recipe!
If you didn’t make any subs, the only thing I can think of is that you didn’t pack the dark brown sugar enough. If you try them again, weigh out 180 grams. If that still doesn’t work, then there must be an odd ingredients situation. You didn’t use European style butter, did you? Two people have left feedback on the post I did for these on my own blog, and it worked for them so I’m not sure what else it could be. But I’m so happy that you were able to make it work out! Thank goodness you knew what temperature to bring it to to make it thicken up. Happy Thanksgiving. :)
BINGO! I had two containers in the fridge and I grabbed the half & half instead of the cream!! I don’t think I would have noticed if you hadn’t mentioned it. Thanks!
Awesome! I’m so happy we could get that figured out. Good luck with the next batch! :)
I don’t know what I did wrong but the no-fail caramel has not thickened up at all! Do you have any suggestions? Other caramel recipes? I swirled the pan around a couple of times. Could that have ruined it?
Help!
I’m sorry it’s not working! Did you make any subs? I once tried this with something like half-and-half and had that problem because half-and-half just isn’t thick enough. The same happens if you use a different type of fat (so something low-fat instead of regular butter). I’ve made this caramel so many times and those were the only times when it didn’t work. I’m afraid I don’t know of another caramel recipe that’d give you the right thickness and consistency for these tarts. If you use a regular caramel sauce recipe, I think the caramel would completely stick to the liners. The caramel thickens quite a bit as it cools so I hope it’ll thick up properly during that time. If it doesn’t, I recommend letting it boil a few more minutes to see if that helps. Good luck!
Do you think I could substitute coconut sugar instead of the brown sugar?
I actually just made a vegan adaption of the filling with coconut sugar, milk and oil and that worked beautifully. I haven’t tried the coconut sugar + cream combination but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I hope you’ll enjoy the tarts. :)
Did a trial run of these to see how they worked out for New Year dinner dessert. I had quite a few eager taste testers and they all thought they were delicious. 3 people asked for the recipe so all in all they were a serious hit!! I now know what I am doing for dessert on New Year.
That’s awesome! I’m so happy that they were enjoyed. And that’s impressive that you’re working so far ahead. I haven’t even gotten around to doing a trial run for Halloween yet. ;) Thanks so much for your feedback!
World’s easiest caramel recipe came from work decades ago when we told one of the kids to boil sweeten condensed milk (it makes a prefect caramel without adding anything) Well he did in the cans. That’s when we discovered that simmering an unopened can for a couple hours creates at perfect caramel. You can’t scorch it, you can’t burn it just cover with water, bring it to a boil and turn it down to simmer and let it go for about 45 minutes perfect every time
Thanks for the tip! I’ve made homemade dulce de leche that way before and it’s so fun opening up the can. :) I read a few stories about exploding cans so now I just do it in the oven (here’s how). Thanks for your comment!
I had to read the recipe a few times, I don’t bake much and was confused how you wrote the recipe on the filing.
I’m sorry you found that part confusing! Is it all clear now or is there anything I can help you with? :)
These beauties look so decadent and simply amazing! Pecan-caramel and gluten free! Love it! :) bookmarking these one!
Thanks so much, Rita! I hope you’ll enjoy them if you get a chance to try them out. :)
Erin, I’m sorry I didn’t see it in the instructions. Guess I need to read them a little bit closer. Thank you for the reply. And I m going to try them this weekend.
No problem! I just meant hopefully you saw it before you went out and bought mini tart pans. :) I hope they came out well!
Are tart pans like the mini and regular size cupcake pans? All I have are the cupcake pans will they work?
Sorry for the slow reply, Debbie! Hopefully you saw in the instructions that a normal muffin pan is used. I hope you enjoyed them if you tried them! :)