When I was a kid, Pecan Turtles were my favorite candy. My mom would take me shopping at Sears and let me pick out candy from their fabulous candy section. I always went home with Turtles.
When my kids were little, I started making Pecan Turtles for the holidays. It wasn’t exactly a yearly tradition, as some years I dropped the ball on making them.
Now that all three kids are living on their own, they’re coming back to the comforts of home–and Pecan Turtles.
I’ve been getting a lot of requests for the recipe, so here goes! The original was based on a recipe I found in a Taste of Home cookbook many years ago, but I’ve modified it enough to call it a Putz recipe now.
Putzy Pecan Turtles
(Otherwise known as The Ultimate Pecan Turtle Recipe)
Ingredients:
Two sticks of butter (get the good stuff)
1 can (14 ounces) of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup of light corn syrup (we didn’t say this was healthy)
2 1/2 cups of light brown sugar gently packed
Two pinches (approx 1/8 tsp) of sea salt
1 tsp of vanilla (I use Trader Joe’s)
32 ounces of chopped pecans (I use four bags of ALDI Chopped Pecans–delicious and not expensive!)
Two bags of Ghiradelli Chocolate Wafers (if your local store doesn’t have it, you can get it on my Amazon affliate here: Ghiradelli White and Chocolate Wafers) Trust me, this is THE chocolate to use for these babies.
Melt the butter SLOWLY in a copper or copper-bottom pan. (Copper is essential for the best outcomes. I use a 4-quart Revere saucepan that my mom gave me 30 years ago. If you want to get fancy, there’s a nice 3.7 copper saucepan from France: Mauviel M’passion. And yes, this is an affiliate link so if you do order it, not only will you cook up some great stuff but I’ll get some pennies, too.)
Once the butter is almost melted, dump in the brown sugar, corn syrup, and condensed milk.
Stir slowly and constantly over medium heat. If the heat is too high too fast, the mixture will begin to burn and spit out chunks of brown–you don’t want that. Candy making is an art–you’ll have to get good at this before you can master it.
It takes me about thirty minutes to get the mixture up to the “firm boil” stage which is 248 degrees. How do you know when it hits this point? There are two ways. One, you can use a candy thermometer. (I used a Wilton Thermometer for many years, until I lost it in one of our moves.) Or… you can fill a shot glass with ice cold water. Put a drop of the candy mixture into the glass. If it is done, it will harden and not spread out in the water.
I need to remind you.. you MUST continually stir while cooking this candy. You can pause here and there to allow the heat to continue to rise, but keep it moving now and then or it will burn.
Remove the saucepan and add the vanilla. Let the mixture cool for about five to ten minutes, stirring occasionally.
Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Spread the pecans in a large stainless steel cooking tray. Using a dinner spoon (not the teaspoon that comes with your silverware set), scoop out approximately a tablespoon of the caramel mix and drop it over the chopped pecans, forming a circle. Repeat until you can’t drop any more circles over the pecans.
Using a spatula, lift off the candy and place it on the parchment paper. Continue to drop circles of caramel until you’ve used all the pecans. If there is any caramel leftover, you can make the rest of it without nuts.
Open one bag of chocolate and place in a two-cup glass measuring cup. You can microwave this for one minute (add additional time in 20 second increments–do not overheat!) or melt over a small pan of boiling water (use a metal bowl if you do it this way.)
Using a teaspoon (that’s the smaller spoon in your silverware set), drop circles of chocolate over the turtles.
Store in a glass dish, using parchment paper between layers of candy.
I don’t know how many it makes–someone is always digging in before I can count them…
Karen Putz is known as “The Passion Mentor.” Occasionally she masquerades as a chef in the Putz household. She is the author of “Unwrapping Your Passion, Creating the Life You Truly Want” and runs Passion Academy–the school with no detention services.