Pecan Cookies
Notes
• My father has told me that getting my great-grandmother to preserve her recipes for posterity was no easy task. She measured ingredients with her hands and whatever spoon or cup was available, not with precisely calibrated instruments. I suspect that there is some imprecision in her recipes as recorded, and as she died before I was born, I never know quite what I'm shooting for. So I always feel free to play with the amounts and times to get the result I want. Here, of course, I'm deliberately going for a different kind of cookie than the one she made, but the point remains: there is nothing sacrosanct about a recipe, no matter who wrote it. After all, you're the one that has to eat it!
I can't claim that these cookies are in any
way distinctly Pennsylvania Dutch. But my Pennsylvania Dutch great-grandmother
made pecan cookies, and my great-grandfather and father liked them enough
to make her write down the recipe before she died.
The problem with my great-grandmother's
recipe is that the cookies harden almost immediately as they cool, and
I like my cookies soft and chewy. Partly by trial and error and partly
by borrowing an idea from a chocolate chip cookie recipe in Cook's
Illustrated magazine, I came up with this version that is soft, chewy,
and very nutty. The nutmeg is entirely my own addition. I hope my great-grandmother
would approve.
Makes about 1-1/2 dozen big cookies.
INGREDIENTS
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 cups coarsely chopped pecans
EQUIPMENT
two mixing bowls
2 baking sheets, greased or lined with parchment paper
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and nutmeg in a small bowl.
2. Mix the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until thoroughly combined. (You can use an electric mixer for this, but it is just as easy to do it with a wooden spoon.) Mix in the egg and egg yolk. Add the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Stir in the pecans.
3. Shape 1/4-cup scoops of dough into rough balls and place them onto the baking sheets. Do not press them to flatten them, and don't bother making them too smooth (the pecans will make that impossible).
3. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the cookies are light golden brown and the edges just begin to harden. When they are done, the cookies will still be very soft in the middle but will set up as they cool.
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