Another new addition to this year's Christmas cookie collection, Butter Pecan Cookies. Also found in my little Martha Stewart cookbook. I really revamped this year, throwing in a couple new additions with the old tried and true cookies that have been around for years. I chose these because I wanted another "plain" cookie to the mix to offset the chocolate, peanut butter, molasses and gingerbread (you'll meet them soon) flavors that I already had. Again, I like a nice variety, it's the spice of life. As far as making these cookies is concerned I followed the recipe, but changed a few things along the way which I'll mention in the recipe below (for starters, I doubled the recipe to make enough cookies). I've said before I'm not a big fan of nuts, and don't usually include them when I make cookies, but I do like Butter Pecan Cookies. Plus, these wouldn't really be butter pecan cookies if I didn't include the pecans. They'd just be butter cookies. While tasty, what fun is that really?
Butter Pecan Cookies
3/4 cup pecans
8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating and sprinkling
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a rimmed baking sheet, toast pecans until fragrant and crisp, about 6 minutes. Remove from sheet; let cool completely. Finely chop.
2. With an electric mixer, beat butter and 1/3 cup sugar until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla, salt and flour, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, just until dough comes together. Fold in pecans.
3. Separate dough into 12 equal pieces (I didn't do this because I wanted more than 12 cookies so I rolled the dough into 1-inch balls and then rolled them into sugar and placed them on cookie sheet). Squeeze dough into balls; roll in sugar. Place balls on baking sheet, 3 inches apart. Gently flatten with the bottom of a glass (reshape sides if necessary). Sprinkle with more sugar.
4. Bake until cookies are golden brown, about 15 minutes (because my cookies were smaller than what the recipe said I started with less baking time, 10 minutes, but increased it to about 13 minutes per batch when all was said and done). Sprinkle with more sugar. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
