Flourless Pecan Cake

What went wrong!? Just made this today (2/24/23). Used pecan flour from Oliver Farm. Weighed the flour and the brown sugar. Only had jumbo eggs, not large. Sugar added to eggs produced a very dense, not liquid batter, and when pecan flour was added, the whole thing seized up into a nearly impenetrable mass. A wooden spoon struggled to push through the dough. At this point it felt like a lost cause because there was no way beaten egg whites would incorporate into such a dense dough/batter. To make it lighter I added two more eggs and some milk until I got a batter that would accept the egg whites. Folded beaten whites in and, while the batter was still quite thick, it did go into the cake pan. Baked it at 350 for about 35 minutes. I haven't tried it yet (cake still cooling off), and honestly I don't have a context for what it might be like.

Could it be that using pecan flour is not recommended? I know that ground nuts have a different, sort of sandier texture than nut flours. Maybe the finely ground pecan flour absorbed more moisture than ground pecans simply because the pecan flour has more surface area to attract water...? Anyway, I was excited about trying this recipe and eagerly anticipated making it but might not use pecan flour ($15/pound), instead grind pecans in a hand grinder.

I have no idea what the heck I did wrong with such an easy recipe. Here's what I did.

This morning I went down to our local spice store. Low and behold, I found "pecan flour," 100% pecans. It was exactly what you described above, a sandy texture. SOLD! That's what I used. I figured 340 grams of pecans = 340 grams of pecan flour. Then, since someone else suggested substituting 3/4 C maple syrup for the brown sugar, I also did that. Besides that, the only difference was that I used jumbo eggs rather than regular.
My "batter" was anything but pourable. In fact, after mixing it the best I could, I literally picked it up with my hands and put it into the pan. It was much more like a dough. I have nothing further to lose trying to cook it, so that's what I'm doing. It's been in the over for about 5 minutes and still looks the same. :( I'm hoping it will at least work for crumbling over ice cream or something.

This was delicious! I halved the recipe since I had only about 100 gm of pecans, and it was perfection. Dana’s right, it goes so well with coffee, can’t wait to make this again!

Thank you to the other reviewers below, I followed two of the suggestions, and toasted the nuts before blitzing to a powder, and added a splash of vanilla extract.

It was the first time I was beating egg whites, so I was unsure of when to stop, and was thinking it’d be helpful to have a video, but thanks to the wonder that is the internet, a quick search threw up an image, so I knew what I was working towards. It would help to add time for both a stand mixer, and a handheld one.

Thank you for the recipe!

This was delicious! I halved the recipe since I had only about 100 gm of pecans, and it was perfection. Dana’s right, it goes so well with coffee, can’t wait to make this again!

Thank you to the other reviewers below, I followed two of the suggestions, and toasted the nuts before blitzing to a powder, and added a splash of vanilla extract.

It was the first time I was beating egg whites, so I was unsure of when to stop, and was thinking it’d be helpful to have a video, but thanks to the wonder that is the internet, a quick search threw up an image, so I knew what I was working towards. It would help to add time for both a stand mixer, and a handheld one.

Thank you for the recipe!

This was delicious! I halved the recipe since I had only about 100 gm of pecans, and it was perfection. Dana’s right, it goes so well with coffee, can’t wait to make this again!

Thank you to the other reviewers below, I followed two of the suggestions, and toasted the nuts before blitzing to a powder, and added a splash of vanilla extract.

It was the first time I was beating egg whites, so I was unsure of when to stop, and was thinking it’d be helpful to have a video, but thanks to the wonder that is the internet, a quick search threw up an image, so I knew what I was working towards. It would help to add time for both a stand mixer, and a handheld one.

Thank you for the recipe!

I shared this recipe with my Mom, who loves to bake. She surprised me with it for my birthday, and it was so incredibly moist and delicious. She baked and refrigerated the night before as suggested. It's also yummy with a great cup of coffee. I love pecans and this cake is a true celebration of all things pecan.

This was so good! The flavor reminds me of pecan pie. I made these as cupcakes and topped with cream cheese icing and sprinkles (sprinkles make it a party!).

Lovely! I made this recipe for a work function, as a number of coworkers are gluten free. I baked the batter in mini muffin pans (12 minutes was perfect) for one bite treats, topped with a rosette of not too sweet icing. They were polished off by ALL staff, not just the GF ones! Will make again

I am on a strict weight loss diet, and as a chemist (retired), I do calorie calculations from scratch ingredients every day. It is easy once you get the hang of it. I also weigh everything I eat as well as ingredients when cooking.

Calculating the calories of this Flourless Pecan Cake is easy, thanks to the recipe specifications in grams! (Hooray! Do this more often!)

I hope the table, I created below is readable once posted. Here goes.

Flourless Pecan Cake 6.30 cals/gram (estimated) or 630 cal/100 grams ~3.5 oz)

Cals/gram Ingredient Weight used Cals used
7.16 est butter for pan ~10g 72
1.20 4 lg [email protected] 52g/each 208 250
3.77 sugar, lt brown 213 803
6.79 pecans 340 2308
0.00 salt, 1 tsp 8 0
______ ______
Totals 779 3433
Assume 30% weight loss on baking (YMMV)
545 g
Since the calories in the total dish do not change on cooking, to get the calories per gram of the final dish divide the total cals of the ingredients used by the final weight (viz. =3444/545), which gives 6.30 calories/gram or 630 calories/100 grams or 3.5 oz (if you're metric challenged.)

The picture shows the cake divided into eight pieces, so each piece would be the total calories divided by 8 or 429 cals.

If I made this cake, I would have a more exact figure as I would weigh it after baking to get the actual weight loss. Here I used a reasonable estimate of 30% weight loss. Might be a little more. Might be a little less.

Also note that I used the caloric value of raw pecans, not toasted.

Toasting them would RAISE the calories considerably, if you used the same weight as for raw pecans! The reason is that the raw pecans have a bit more water, which is lost on roasting, thus concentrating the calories in what is left. So using roasted pecans at the same weight is like using more concentrated pecans.

Note: The sugar caramelizes and forms a sticky glue, which along with the egg help to bind the cake together. The egg/sugar combination helps to act in the place of the gluten proteins found in flour. Beating the egg whites incorporates air and thus helps to leaven the cake, but none of these things change the calories/unit weight.

This is my new favorite go-to dessert! I love it plain or with a drizzle of caramel sauce. I was out of shortening, so I used butter instead, and it worked just fine. I am experimenting now with substituting maple syrup for the brown sugar. It’s baking now. If the cake is as tasty as the batter was, it will be awesome! I guess I will find out tomorrow!

Hi. I did roast the pecans and let them cool completely before grinding them up. I also substituted 1/2 of the sugar with coconut sugar (because I had it on hand) and added vanilla paste (because I can't seem to bake anything without it). The results were sublime. BTW, my cake only took 1/2 hour to bake so I'm glad I was watching it closely. My oven must run hot.

I loved this cake! It was simple to make — the hardest part was getting the pecans to a sand texture but not a butter. The texture is dense, and the flavors are reminiscent of pecan pie and a breakfast-style cake. 10/10 would make again.

Has anyone toasted the nuts before grinding? The ones I have are rich and buttery but have less flavor than they usually do and I don't want to end up with a bland cake.

I should have asked this before making the cake, planned for this afternoon, but I bought pecan flour on Amazon and what is the conversion from 3/4 pound of pecans to cups of pecan flour?

As someone who loves pecans, I was looking forward to this one, but it’s really just okay. I think using raw (rather than toasted) pecans diluted their flavor. I wouldn’t bother making it again.

This brings back such happy memories of my Sicilian grandma. Many a torta would come out of her oven and the scent of the nuts baking could drive you ravenous. So rich and dense it serves more people than you think. I’d serve it in thin slices with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream or a dollop of fresh lemon cream. Grandma however, dusted it with enough powdered sugar to cause an asthma attack. Thanks for the recipe. It reminds me I need to make this memory!

I was thinking this would be a good dessert for Passover! I just did a flourless chocolate cake but I really had wanted to do something with nuts.

would almond flour work instead of the pecans??

This was both easy and delicious!

I made exactly as you have laid out and oh my gosh, decadent, sweet and amazing. I am not really a sweet person but can I say magnificent, it is not a cake you eat everyday so why do people complain about sugar content, guys it's an occasional cake.... Thankyou for sharing 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🤩🤩🤩😘😘😘😘😘😘