Cakes & Bakes: Farmer’s wife’s pecan cookies

This Farmer’s wife’s pecan cookies recipe is taken from Maida Heatter’s Cookies book. Heatter is an award-winning American chef and author who specialises in cakes, cookies and desserts. She’s 102-years-old – so she must be cooking and eating something right!

I chose it as this week’s Cakes & Bakes dish because they could be made in a jiffy. We’ve been away from home for a spell – spending a few days in rural Wales – returning yesterday afternoon.

The recipe makes 36 cookies – way too many for the two of us. Rather than scaling the recipe down, I’ve reserved & refrigerated about half the cookie dough. When the 15 that I’ve baked off have been eaten (the way things are going, it may be as soon as tomorrow) I can rustle up another batch in about a quarter of an hour. They’re absolutely delicious – and perfect with tea, coffee or glass of milk.

Click here to save Maida Heatter’s farmer’s wife’s pecan cookies recipe to Pinterest

Farmer's wife's pecan cookies

2019-03-27 17:13:59

Yields 36

Prep Time

20 min

Cook Time

13 min

Total Time

33 min

Prep Time

20 min

Cook Time

13 min

Total Time

33 min

Ingredients

200g/7oz plain flour, sifted
¼ tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
115g/4oz butter
250g/9oz light brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
64g/2¼oz pecans, touch chopped
36 pecan halves

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Instructions

Adjust two racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 175ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper
Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside
Cut the butter into 2½cm/1" pieces and place in a heavy 2- to 3-litre (70-105 fl oz) saucepan. Melt slowly over a low heat, stirring occasionally.
Remove from the heat and, with a heavy wooden spoon, stir in the sugar, then the vanilla and the egg
Add the sifted dry ingredients, stirring until smooth
Mix in the chopped pecans
Transfer to a small bowl for ease in handling
Use a rounded teaspoon of dough for each cookie. Place them 5cm/2” apart on the sheets
Place a pecan half on each cookie, pressing it gently and lightly into the dough
Bake for 12-14 minutes, reversing the position of the sheets top to bottom and front to back to ensure even browning. When baking only one sheet at a time, use the higher rack
With a wide, metal spatula, transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool

Notes

These will rise during baking and then will settle down. They should be medium brown - don't underbake

By Maida Heatter

Adapted from Maida Heatter's Cookies

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

A round-up of our top 5 biscuits and cookies recipes

We’ve been through our past year’s stats to find out what have been our most popular biscuits and cookies recipes. There’s a mixed bunch in the collection; both British and American recipes get a look in.

Scottish shortbread

A classic recipe brought to us by a classic home cook – Delia Smith. This is the recipe that I use as a starting point for most of my shortbread variations. It’s fair to say that this is probably the most popular of all our biscuits and cookies recipes.

Honey almond brittle biscuits

These thins are from a recipe I found in the Guardian; devised by Tamal Ray, a Great British Bake Off alumnus. Quick to bake and best eaten on the day of making – they lose their snap pretty quickly.

Gypsy Creams

I’m not sure of the origin of these biscuits. I think they’re British – but why are they called gypsy creams? These double-decker lovelies are full of oats, chocolate and golden syrup.

Butter-dipped biscuits

This recipe is for biscuits – but not the kind of biscuits that we’re accustomed to over here in the UK. These American biscuits are more closely related to our scones than anything else. Do you pronounce it ‘scons’ or ‘skowns’?

Salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread

This is the other shortbread recipe in our short-list. Our attempt at Alison Roman’s famous salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread recipe featured in a news round up in 2018, and this post went ballistic!

Click here to save this post to Pinterest!

Cakes & Bakes: Dark and white chocolate chip cookies

I had a leftover half a bag of dark chocolate chips after baking a friend a birthday cake a couple of weeks ago. I also had a leftover half a bar of white chocolate after making my peanut ice cream sundae recently.

I’ve not made any cookies for a very long time, so today I used them as the starting point for a batch of dark and white chocolate chip cookies.

Every time I make biscuits and cookies, it reminds me how quick and easy it is to do. And, if you don’t need a dozen large cookies at a time, you can cook off what you need and freeze the rest.

These cookies have crisp edges and soft centres and not over-sweet; great with a cup of tea, mug of coffee or glass of milk. You can use either chocolate chips or chop bars into rough chunks using a sharp knife. Store them in an airtight container kept in a cool place for up to a week.

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Dark and white chocolate chip cookies

2018-11-07 14:22:59

Ingredients

135g butter, melted
½ tsp vanilla extract
75g caster sugar
75g light brown soft sugar
1 large egg, beaten
180g plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g white chocolate, chopped into chunks
150g dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

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Instructions

Combine the melted butter, vanilla extract and both types of sugar and beat until smooth
Add the beaten egg and combine well
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and bicarbonate of soda
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture one spoonful at a time, stirring well between each addition
Stir in all but a tablespoon each of the dark & white chocolate chunks to the cookie dough, combining well
Chill the dough in the fridge for about an hour
Grease & line a baking sheet with baking parchment
Preheat the oven to 170°C, fan 150°C/ Gas mark 3
Scoop out about a dessert spoon of dough at a time, roll it between your palms to form a ball
Put the ball on the prepared baking sheet and stud the top with some of the reserved dark and white chocolate chunks (only put 4 or 5 balls on the sheet at a time, leaving lots of space between each ball, as the cookies spread quite a bit during cooking)
Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly golden and crisp at the edges.
Allow to cool and firm up for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring them to a wire rack for a further 10 minutes
Repeat stages 9 - 12 until all the cookie dough has been used

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread

It’s been a while since I’ve made a batch of cookies or a round of shortbread. I’ve hit two birds with one stone with this salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread recipe from Alison Roman.

They’ve become so popular that she now simply refers to them as “The Cookies” – all her Instagram fans know what she’s talking about!

The recipe makes two ‘logs’. Cooking off one log at a time is enough for our 2-person household. The other log is now in the freezer, waiting for the first batch to be demolished.

Refrigerator cookies are so convenient. A quick ten or so minutes in the making, about the same amount of time in the oven, cook off as many as you want and no waste.

The recipe is very straightforward. However, there’s one step that needs to be followed to the letter. Chilling the logs in the fridge for 2 hours before cooking is the absolute minimum.

I whisked them out of the fridge a little too early as we wanted to catch some daylight for our photos. That’s why my cookies spread a little too much in the oven and the chocolate chunks didn’t hold their shape very well. The next batch will be super chilled!

They still tasted great – and that second log won’t be languishing in the freezer for long!

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Salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread

2018-03-14 14:18:54

Cook Time

12 min

Cook Time

12 min

Ingredients

255g/9oz salted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
100g/3½oz granulated sugar
50g/1¾oz light brown sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
295g/10⅓oz plain flour
170g/6oz dark chocolate, chopped (you want chunks, not thin shards of chocolate)
1 large egg
A few tablespoons Demerara sugar, turbinado etc for rolling
A few pinches of flaky sea salt for sprinkling

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Instructions

Beat the butter, granulated and brown sugars and vanilla with an electric or stand mixer until light and fluffy, scraping down bowl as needed
Add the flour and mix until just until combined
Add the chocolate chunks, mix just until incorporated. The mixture will look crumbly
Divide the dough between two sheets of parchment paper, cling film and use your hands to form the dough halves into log shapes about 5cm/2" in diameter
Chill until totally firm - around 2 hours
Preheat the oven to 175ºC/350°F/Gas mark 4
Line one or two large baking sheets with parchment paper
Lightly beat the egg and open up your chilled cookies logs to brush it over the sides
Sprinkle the coarse, brown sugar on the open paper or plastic wrap and roll the logs in it, coating them thoroughly
Using a sharp serrated knife, cut the logs into 1cm/½" thick rounds. You'll hit some chocolate chunks, so saw gently, squeezing the cookie to keep it from breaking
Arrange the slices on the lined baking sheets 2½cm/1" apart, then sprinkle each with a few flakes of salt
Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges just begin to turn golden brown
Allow to cool slightly before transferring them to wire racks to cool

Notes

The dough can made ahead and stored - tightly wrapped in cling film - for up to 1 week in the fridge or 1 month in the freezer. Baked cookies keep in an airtight container for 5 days

By Alison Roman

Adapted from Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes

H is for Home Harbinger https://hisforhomeblog.com/