Pecan Praline Crunch - Salty and Sweet Goodness

To me, this recipe means Christmas.  Every year during the holidays my good friend Carolyn would make this wonderful snack and bring it to work.  I now try to make it every Christmas.  It's crunchy, sweet, salty, and full of flavor.  It may even be good for you because of the Quaker Oat Squares.   There are quite a few variations of this recipe on the internet but this one is the original given to me.  You might want to buy more than one box of the oat squares because people will be wanting more.  I used one whole 12-ounce box and doubled the recipe and had more than enough.  You will need:


1 6-ounce box or larger of Quaker Oat Squares
1 cup pecans chopped
1/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 cup light corn syrup
3 Tbsp vegetable oil (I used sticks of margarine)

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.  Apply cooking spray onto a 13 by 9 inch cookie sheet.  Combine the brown sugar, the light corn syrup, and the vegetable oil in a microwave bowl.  Microwave for 1 1/2 minutes.  Stir.  Microwave again for another 30 seconds.  Combine the cereal and the wet mixture together along with the pecans.  Gently mix and spread onto the cookie sheet.  Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour, stirring the mixture every 20 minutes.  Immediately spread the mixture out on parchment paper and break into pieces.