Pecan Shortbread

Every holiday season I make cookies.  Lots and lots of cookies.  Thankfully, for my waistline anyways, I give away  most of them.  I have my go-to recipes for biscotti and a few faves (chocolate and ginger reign at Christmas).  Also, not to get stale on my baking prowess, I like to add a recipe or two to keep things interesting.  And I found two keepers this year!

Pecan Shortbread with Demerara Sugar

(Demerara sugar is less refined than white sugar and it gives these cookies a cruchy, almost molasses-like flavour)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup demerara sugar

1 Tbsp white sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup pecans, halves or pieces

Place the butter, sugars and salt into your Kitchen Aid (or other mixer, stand or hand) and mix until creamy, light and fluffy.  Mix flour and powder together and slowly add to a slow mixer (otherwise you will be wearing most of it).  Once mixed, add the pecans and mix until incorporated.

You can make drop cookies out of these with a couple of teaspoons, place in a parchement lined cake tin (one that the bottom lifts out) and score into wedges, or do what I did, roll them into cylinders and chill/freeze until you are ready to bake.

I rolled mine quite small, about the diameter of a silver dollar, and pressed them into a little more demerara sugar for prettiness and an extra crunch before baking in a 325 F oven for about 8 10 minutes, just when they start to turn golden.  Obviously the wedge ones will take longer, more like 45 minutes but the same rules apply, remove when they start to change color.

These freeze exceptionally well as dough or baked cookies.  And they make beautiful, thoughful gifts.

 

Comments

[Jean]

I tried it - I am cheap, so I just used brown sugar instead of the demarara sugar, and they were fantastic. After making a batch that we ate immediately, I tried them out for a work dinner, and they all disappeared, with multiple requests for the recipe. You have a winner here!

Hope all is well with you - our cold weather (it froze 2 or 3 days) finally went away, and it will be 70s and 80s Farenheit the next few days. Some things about Louisiana are quite nice. But ask me about mosquitoes in January and February....