Recipes with pecans

Three-ingredient meringue cookies loaded with chopped pecans and brown sugar. These featherlight kisses bake in just 5 minutes and make 30 bite-sized treats from a single egg white.

Pumpkin bars built on a spice cake mix shortcut: a press-in crust topped with a pumpkin custard layer, finished with chopped pecans. Thirty-two festive holiday bars from one box of mix.

Pecan tossies with cream cheese pastry cups filled with a brown sugar, butter, and pecan filling. Miniature pecan pies baked in muffin tins for bite-sized holiday treats.

The famous "Better Than Sex" chocolate cake: box mix doctored with pudding, sour cream, real coffee, chocolate chips, and toasted pecans. Tube-baked and drizzled with a glossy chocolate glaze.

This two-layer banana cake with buttermilk and chopped pecans bakes up incredibly moist and tender. Made with cake flour for a fine, soft crumb, it's the kind of from-scratch banana cake that wins blue ribbons.

Cream cheese and cottage cheese cheesecake on a pecan graham cracker crust, topped with a homemade blueberry glaze. Slow-cooled in the oven for a crack-free finish.

Buttermilk chocolate cake split and filled with coconut-pecan cream, then blanketed in sour cream chocolate frosting. A Southern showpiece worth every step.

Whole wheat quick bread sweetened with prune butter and brightened with fresh orange juice and zest, studded with chopped pecans. A no-added-fat, no-added-sugar loaf with deep moisture.

Moravian sand tarts are thin, buttery Pennsylvania Dutch cookies rolled paper-thin and topped with a pecan half. The dough chills overnight for easy rolling and crisp results.

Pistachio ambrosia salad mixes canned fruit cocktail, pineapple and mandarin oranges with pistachio pudding, sour cream and whipped topping. A retro potluck dessert in every shade of green.

Lulen's grated apple pie shreds the apples instead of slicing for a custard-style filling bound with butter, egg, and cinnamon. Topped with pecans for crunch in a single-crust pie.

Mocha buttercrunch pie with a pecan-chocolate shortbread crust, a frozen mocha mousse filling, and a coffee whipped cream top studded with chocolate chips. Three layers of coffee-and-chocolate richness in every slice.

Apple praline cheesecake layers spiced sauteed apples into a cream cheese filling, then bakes under a buttery brown sugar pecan praline crust. Fall dessert showstopper.

Irish cream balls combine crushed vanilla wafers, toasted pecans, cocoa, and Irish cream liqueur into no-bake boozy bites rolled in powdered sugar. The grown-up holiday cookie tray staple.

Marshmallow clouds wrap chocolate-pecan cookie dough around frozen mini marshmallows for soft, pillowy cookies with surprise sweet chewy centers. Better than s'mores, baked at home.

Sugarless slice-and-bake cookies made with whole wheat flour, chewy dates, toasted coconut, fresh orange zest, and crunchy pecans. Naturally sweetened by fruit alone, these make 5 dozen crisp, nutty rounds.