Sophie’s Bakes: Pecan Cookies
27th April 2018
This week’s bake comes from one of our wonderful recipe books in the showroom, ‘Sweet’ by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh.
These Pecan Cookies are super simple to make and take just over 10 minutes to bake – perfect to whip up in a moment’s notice!
If you’ve ever walked past the window of an Ottolenghi deli you’ll see that their cookies are a huge seller. Needless to say, cookies are a definite favourite in most households and are certainly a winner here at Cotes Mill. I have the pleasure of using the Smeg dual fuel range cooker in our Mushroom-painted Shaker kitchen, there’s nothing quite like the smell of freshly baked cookies filling the showroom!
Give these a go this weekend, you won’t regret it!
Ingredients:
- 240g pecan nuts
- 250g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 2cm cubes
- 200g light brown sugar
- 200g caster sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 560g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp salt
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/Gas Mark 3.
- Spread the pecans out on a baking tray and roast for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and, when cool enough to handle, roughly chop into 1.5cm chunks and set aside. You can turn the oven off at this point as the dough will need to chill in the fridge before baking.
- Place the butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment in place (or alternatively use a large mixing bowl and mix by hand with a spatula). Beat on a high speed for about 2 minutes, until light and fluffy.
- Add the vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift in the flour and salt and continue to mix, a little slower, until well-combined.
- Finally, add the roasted pecans and mix again. Turn off the electric mixer and bring the dough together by hand: the consistency should be firm and come together easily.
- Use your hands to form the dough into ping pong sized balls and set aside in the fridge for an hour to firm up.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/Gas Mark 6. Line two baking trays with baking parchment.
- Spread the balls of dough out onto the baking trays – you’ll need to bake them in two batches – spaced about 6cm apart from each other. Bake for 12 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through to ensure an even golden colour. When they’re golden brown and slightly cracked on top, remove from the oven and set aside to cool on the trays for 10 minutes until firm, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Repeat with the rest of the cookie dough. Alternatively, the cookie dough can be frozen ready to whip out and bake whenever you fancy. This recipe makes about 36 cookies and will keep well for 5 days in an airtight container.
