Memories of Home Remixed—Pecan Pie Turned Into Cookies
What I may not have told you yet is that I love reading murder mysteries. Whether the plot leads to a courtroom drama, a chase around the world, or a mysterious culinary escapade, the twists and turns take me away from work and stress. Quite a few authors these days have swirled cooking, recipes, and murder together to capture my attention. Recently, I was reading one such book that was set in my birth state—Texas. One thing that reminds me of home like nothing else is pecan pie! The crunchy pecans with the oooey gooey sugary filling make my mouth water. Well, this book described pecan pie cookies that one of the main characters was entering in a cooking contest (The Christmas Cookie Killer by Livia J. Washburn—no more spoilers, I promise:) ). They sounded so good that I decided to whip up a batch. (For the step-by-step recipe check out the recipe tab.)
First, I lightly beat the eggs in my electric mixer with the whisk attachment. I know that many of you may use the paddle attachment for cookies, but I have come to really like using the whisk. It works for the whole process from beating eggs, creaming sugar, and mixing in the dry ingredients.
Then I mixed in the remaining ingredients. The result was a buttery dough shown below.
Then I turned to the pecan pie filling, which in my mind was the most important part. Interestingly, the recipe called for making it in the microwave. I was tempted to cook it on the stove top instead, but I decided this time to be true to the recipe for the first batch—not something I usually do, but go figure, why not?!
I whisked together the ingredients for the filling in a glass bowl—remember it was going into the microwave.
Next, the filling went into the microwave for 3 minutes. Wow! This quickly turned into a bubbling candy-like mixture.
I stirred the bubbling concoction, which calmed it down, and voila, magically I had a bowl full of pecan pie filling—or at least something very close to traditional pecan pie filling!
Now it was time to scoop the cookie dough onto parchment paper. I used my small scoop. This still made slightly bigger cookies than the recipe called for, but the consistency in size and shape worked well.
Pressing my thumb into the center of each cookie made the perfect well for the yummy pie filling.
Using a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon (I know it doesn’t sound like much but it was all that would fit in the well), I filled each cookie.
Now you are asking, where are the pecans? You can’t have pecan pie cookies without pecans. Well that is easily remedied. On each cookie, place a pecan half on top of the filling. Now off to the oven to bake.
Finally, the cookies were done. They turned out very pretty.
When baking them be sure that the botton is just golden brown, as shown below, but no darker.
The cookie part, or “crust” as I found myself calling it, is similar to a shortbread, but not quite as buttery. Also, the crust was not as sweet as you might have expected. But that probably was a good thing because the filling is sweet. Interestingly though, the sweet filling did not overpower or dominate the cookie.
Overall, these cookies had a nice mixture of textures—tender crust, gooey filling, and crunchy pecan. They are perfect for the person that wants an alternative to chocolate that is a little sweet but doesn’t put you into a sugar coma. I took these to work, and one person, who would probably describe herself just that way, swears that she ate 10! I guess that means the cookies fit the bill. Give them a try and let me know what you think. Next time, I will probably try a little twist such as pressing thin layers of cookie dough into mini muffin tins and putting the filling in the center. Then I could top them with a pecan half or chopped pecans. That way, I could have more filling and less cookie! Have you guessed, I don’t mind the sugar overload!
The recipe can be found by clicking here.
© 2014 FoodieOasis
